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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26681020">here at the end of the road (maybe happiness is worth the chance of a bitter end)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander'>Lire_Casander</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>nothing ever goes the right way [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>9-1-1: Lone Star (TV 2020)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Aftermath of Violence, Assault, Beating, Blood, Blood and Violence, Canonical Character Death, Coma, Heavy Angst, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Hoodie Theft, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Serious Injuries, Slurs, The Author Doesn't Share The Opinions On Queerness Stated Throughout The Story, Violence, minor original character death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 03:08:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>25,309</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26681020</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lire_Casander/pseuds/Lire_Casander</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>what was supposed to be a romantic night in takes a turn to the left when tk and carlos have a big fight over a petty issue</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>nothing ever goes the right way [7]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1943992</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>69</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>L O N E  S T A R</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>here at the end of the road (maybe happiness is worth the chance of a bitter end)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>written for <a href="https://tarlosweek2020.tumblr.com/">tarlosweek2020</a>, <b><i>day 6: favorite location + you deserve better + angst</i></b>. i've tried to write different setups for my favorite locations in the series: carlos' apartment, the fire station and the place from where they looked at the northern lights. please let me know if i've succeeded!</p><p>written for <b><i>trust issues</i></b> from my <a href="https://lire-casander.tumblr.com/post/626174763915722752/welcome-to-my-very-own-bad-things-happen-bingo">bad things happen bingo card</a></p><p>beta’ed by <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/meloingly/pseuds/meloingly">meloingly</a>. any remaining mistakes are my own</p><p>title from <i>Me, Myself &amp; I</i> by Hanson</p><p>this would never have been finished and/or written without the help of my good friend and wonderful enabler Melo. she's been my cheerleader throughout the whole process. she's held my hand when i wanted to give up and she's loved my characters even more than i love them. thank you so much for your help and your hard work, and for always being there for me.</p><p>last but not least, <b>PLEASE HEED THE WARNINGS</b>. take care of yourself and curate your fandom experience.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>How on Earth has the car ended up skidding in a spot in the road where there’s complete visibility and virtually <i>no</i> obstacles is something that TK will never understand. They have arrived at the accident site just in time to see a Dantesque image — a car askew against a tree with the two occupants trapped among the wreckage. It’s a clear night, no clouds and definitely no rain, but for some reason the car has malfunctioned and they crashed outside the road. Apparently the driver has called the emergency line, so they’re not reaching a scene with any fatal casualties as of yet. TK hopes there isn’t any, because he has a great night ahead and he’s already running late because some douchebag didn’t know how to use his breaks in a perfectly straight road.</p><p>“Hey, city boy!” Judd calls out. “Stop thinking and start moving! We have a rescue to make!”</p><p>“I’m on it!” he calls back. “And it’s <i>Mister City Boy</i> to you, caps and all!”</p><p>Mateo chuckles at their antics as they all rushe from the truck to the car on the sideway, followed closely by Michelle and her team, with their gurneys ready for the rescue. His dad is already by the car, and when they reach him he shakes his head.</p><p>“This is not a rescue mission,” he whispers. “They’re both gone.”</p><p>“What do you mean, gone?” Marjan repeats. “The driver’s wife’s coming, we’ve already called her. Apparently it was his request, the driver’s, I mean.”</p><p>“I don’t know why he wanted her here, but in that case we should be doing a quick work of getting the bodies out of the wreckage,” Owen explains. “Because I’m not sure the wife wants to see what caused the accident.”</p><p>When TK reaches the driverʼs side and peeks inside the car, he understands what his father means. </p><p>The driver is a man, around his mid-thirties, with one hand on the wheel, knuckles white from the way heʼs clutching it. The other hand is on the passengerʼs head, a blonde woman who's bent over the console with her face hidden in the driverʼs crotch. It doesn’t take a genius to comprehend whatʼs been going on inside the car, and TK has the inkling that they have the cause of the accident and the reason why his father doesn’t think it's suitable for the wife to arrive onsite. </p><p>“How the heck did they think <i>this</i> was safe?” Paul exclaims. </p><p>Mateo is gawking at the vehicle, apparently too shocked about the dead people inside to actually register what had been going on. TK exchanges a glance with his father, who nods curtly, and he saunters next to Mateo with a tight smile. </p><p>“Mateo,” he begins. “Why don't you help me do some crowd control?” </p><p>The younger firefighter follows him. The road isn’t especially in the outskirts of town, so even if it's happened in a mostly isolated place there are still voyeurs and bystanders. A couple of Austin Police cars arrive shortly after them; TKʼs surprised when he sees Dan Kapinski getting out of one followed by a rather young officer. </p><p>“What’s he doing here?” </p><p>“Whoʼs that?” Mateo asks innocently. </p><p>TK stares at the middle-aged officer. He’s wearing sunglasses despite it's almost night time, and the uniform shirt looks a bit tight on him. “Kapinski is Carlosʼ partner. I thought they were both off today.” He plasters a smile on his face and goes to greet Kapinski, knowing that heʼs important to his boyfriend — from what TK has gathered, Kapinski and Michelleʼs father were close and they both took care of Carlos while he was growing up. </p><p>“Strand,” Kapinski greets him. “What do we have here?” </p><p>“Car accident. Two DOA,” he informs. “What are you doing here? I thought Carlos said you two had today off.” </p><p>“That’s Carlos,” Kapinski confirms. He motions for the rookie to step ahead and check the site. “He had some errands to run today, so he asked for the day off.” </p><p>“I would have thought that he said he was helping you do something.” </p><p>“Are you sure you’re not the cop in this relationship?” Kapinski jokes. “ʼCause you sure as hell are shooting all the questions here. I have a job to do, kid.” </p><p>TK shakes his head in disbelief as he watches Kapinski walk away and reach the car, where he talks to Owen and takes notes about what happened. There's little they can do now, but the driver had managed to call 911 and heʼd specifically requested his wifeʼs presence. There was a therapist getting onsite as soon as possible, but TK thinks the wife is getting there sooner than everyone else. Heʼs dreading the scene whenever she arrives.</p><p>Focusing back on keeping the crowd at bay while his team works on extracting the bodies out of the wrecked car, TK finds his mind wandering back to Kapinskiʼs words and Carlosʼ strange behaviour from these past weeks. He thinks of the man in the car, of all the lies this man must have told his wife in order to keep a double life. He also thinks if this affair had been just a short-lived incident and that's why he wanted his wife, so he could apologize. Maybe the driver knew he wasn't going to make it and he wanted to depart with no regrets. </p><p>TK canʼt help it when he ends up remembering Alex and how blind heʼd been. He had promised himself that he would never walk into a trap like that, and apparently heʼs been doing a bad job about it. He thinks about the nights when Carlos has come home later than expected and has babbled about traffic and accidents and overlapping shifts. He thinks about all the moments when Carlos has been working on the laptop and suddenly closes the tabs or minimizes the screen so TK canʼt see it. </p><p>He should have seen all the signs, but he's been too blind once again. He knows he canʼt trust everyone but he truly thought Carlos was reliable. And now, the more he thinks about it the more he believes that Carlos is seeing someone else. </p><p>“I think that's the wife,” Mateo points out signalling a woman who's fighting her way through the crowd. “Have they taken them out yet?” </p><p>TK turns around in time to see the woman stepping next to his father, and to watch her as his father leads her to the place they have put the two bodies, under thermal blankets. He watches as she covers her mouth with her hand when she recognizes her husband, and the way her shoulders drop when she recognizes the woman. </p><p>“What was my sister Linda doing here?” she questions out loud, a wail that shakes TK to his core. </p><p>He wants to tell her <i>you deserve better</i> when it dawns on her what's transpired in that car to cause an accident. But she’s too far away, and he needs to keep doing his job so he can get off shift and go face his boyfriend. </p><p>“Are you okay, city boy?” Judd asks, startling him. “You seem distracted.” </p><p>“Carlos has been acting weird lately,” he blurts out, voice barely above a whisper. “This situation has me thinking. What if, you know, what if I'm the wife, once again?” </p><p>“First, you need to stop comparing everything back to that asshole of an ex. And second,” Judd says, lifting two fingers in the air. “Carlos would rather kill himself than hurt you intentionally like this. You know that.” </p><p>“Do I?” TK laments. Behind them, the wife is now openly shouting expletives at her husbandʼs corpse. When they both turn, they can see Captain Strand physically keeping her from kicking the bodies. “I just don't want to end up like her. I don't want to find out because he died in an accident.” </p><p>“Now you're being overly dramatic. Like, Broadway dramatic. Maybe Carlos is planning a surprise for you. Or maybe heʼs just acting the way he always has and youʼre extra snippy these days.”</p><p>“Maybe youʼre right, Judd,” TK concedes. “But I have a bad feeling about tonight.” </p><p>“You always get bad vibes when there’s a situation like this. We can't save everyone, city boy, but that doesn’t mean weʼre not trying. These guys back there, they should have been truthful and honest. But that's their mistake, and they certainly don't have anything to do with you.”</p><p>TK nods, but he isn’t paying attention. He just keeps watching as the wife crumbles down in his fatherʼs arms, and he wonders whether next time it will be him. </p><p>There’s just a lot of scars marring his soul, and heʼs done enough damage as well. Maybe he should listen to Judd, who has become surprisingly good at giving advice, and just wrap up a particularly bad day at work before heading to Carlosʼ for the night. Maybe it's the stress and the fear talking. </p><p>Maybe he has no reason not to trust his boyfriend.</p>
<hr/><p>Carlos has the fish in the oven at low temperature and the fruity non-alcoholic cocktails that Marjan has helped him put together chilling in the fridge. He should be making tiramisu for dessert — TK’s favorite — but he’s only managed to get through  half the recipe before his inability to focus tonight gets the best of him and he has to abandon it until his hands don’t shake that much. Everything looks up for a wonderful night when he might ask the most important question in his life, and he would be lying if he said he isn’t nervous.</p><p>He checks the clock — TK’s shift is still on for at least another hour, so he chooses to leave the food getting perfectly cooked and the halfway made dessert for later, and he picks up his phone. Maybe it’s time to make the call he’s been dreading for the longest time.</p><p>He bites down on his lower lip, finger hovering over the name that he hasn’t called in a while now — he even has her under <i>Alicia</i> and not <i>Mom</i>. That should be enough of a hint for him to understand that she isn’t the perfect choice for this conversation, but he still needs his mother by his side even if it’s been years since their last interaction that wasn’t over Christmas greetings texts.</p><p>He presses on the call button, and waits out. He doesn’t try again after the umpteenth ringtone dies without anyone picking up at the other side of the call. Carlos sighs, giving up just like he always does when it comes to communicating with his mother. It’s been like this since his father died — she focused on her career so much that she made their life hell whenever she was home. When her sister accepted a transfer to train the new recruits at her first basic camp, Carlos felt completely abandoned — that was also the moment his mother chose to sink back into her career and forget that she even had a son.</p><p>Maybe he should call Amalia. It’s been a few months since they last saw each other, but they talk over the phone almost weekly. She’s the only tie linking him to any side of the family he has left; he knows she’s going to be happy that he’s finally made up his mind about forming a family of his own. He checks the time — Amalia should be free to talk now. </p><p>“Carlitos!” his sister greets him after the first ringtone. He can’t help the smile that spreads on his face upon hearing her voice. “What’s up, lil bro?”</p><p>“Amie!” he calls back. “I really wanted to talk to you.”</p><p>She laughs heartily at the other end, and it’s enough to warm him up. “I can tell. You sound a little bit jumpy, something wrong? Have you had a fight with TK?”</p><p>Carlos would curse his sister’s ability to read between the lines — she’s always been good at discerning his emotions and talking him out of the deep end whenever he’s falling too hard. When TK had been driving him crazy — when he almost <i>lost</i> him — Amalia had been the person he’d first called after he left the hospital room. He hadn’t even opened his heart to Michelle, even though she’s officially his best friend. Amalia is just at a different, higher level of trust.</p><p>“No, nothing’s wrong. I, uh, I have something to tell you.”</p><p>And just like that, he spills everything to his older sister. Amalia has always been supportive of him, but her work as a trainer at Parris Island makes catching up all the more difficult. Between time zones and their job schedules, they haven’t been able to see each other since Easter, when he’d snatched a few days off to fly up there — TK had a few back-to-back shifts to cover since Marjan and Paul had asked for time off as well to go visit their families. There’s nothing he wants more than for TK and Amalia to meet — he’s sure they would hit it off spectacularly. </p><p>Maybe it’s weird, but he can’t wait for them to gang up on him.</p><p>He talks for what seems like ages about TK and his plans for the night, and the place where he’s been hiding the ring he can’t wait for TK to wear even if he won’t due to his job. At some point he checks the clock again, and he discovers that TK is almost about to get home.</p><p>“Amie, I should really get going. TK’s about to come home and—”</p><p>The door creaks open and TK calls out, “Carlos, I’m home!”</p><p>He thinks distantly about the defective hinges he should replace, because his door makes some noises that he doesn’t like at all. </p><p>“I have to hang up now,” Carlos whispers in hushed tones into the microphone, swiping his thumb over the screen and ending the call just in time for TK to step into the kitchen. </p><p>“Who were you talking to?” TK asks casually, sauntering over to where Carlos is awkwardly standing. He gets on the tip of his toes to give a sweet peck on Carlosʼ lips. </p><p>“Hello to you too,” Carlos tries to change the subject, attempting to deepen the kiss. TK pulls away and cocks an eyebrow at him. </p><p>“Who were you talking to, Carlos?” he repeats. </p><p>“Eh, ah, I was talking to Amalia,” Carlos splutters, suddenly nervous again. He doesn’t like the tone in his boyfriendʼs voice. </p><p>TK blinks at him, his brows furrowing. “Why wouldn’t you tell me straight away?” There’s suspicion in his words, one hand on his waist and his sneakers tapping on the floor. “Answer me, Carlos. If you were <i>really</i> talking to your sister, why wouldn’t you tell me?” </p><p>“Iʼm telling you now, Tyler,” he replies calmly. He doesn’t know where this conversation is going, but Carlos doesn’t like it. “Why are you so worked up about it? I was just finishing dinner. Let's go eat.” </p><p>“And now you're deflecting,” TK scoffs. “You just want to confuse me so I forget about this. What are you hiding from me, Carlos? Why are you lying to me?” </p><p>Carlos stares at TK agape. He’s not sure when his perfect night has turned to shambles, but he could have never expected his plan going awry in a way that resembles a train wreck. </p><p>“I am <i>not</i> lying to you!” he exclaims, a bit frustrated. “I was just talking to Amalia!” </p><p>“What else have you lied about?” TK keeps on, ignoring Carlos and drawing circles around the kitchen island where the half-prepared dessert is mocking them both. </p><p>Carlos feels like tugging at his hair and shouting out loud, but he knows nothing about that is going to help his case here. He knew TK had issues, but after a year and a half of official dating, Carlos had thought they were past some of those suspicions. </p><p>“Did you really go up to visit Amalia last Easter?” TK muses out loud. “Or was it a well-planned trip wherever with whoever you're seeing behind my back?” </p><p>And that's the last straw. Carlos shakes his head, tosses his phone over the counter between them toward his boyfriend with the screen upward, and crosses the distance to TK in a couple of strides. “You can check it. I was calling Amalia.” </p><p>“And what would you talk to her about at this time on a Tuesday?” TK asks. Carlos knows it isn’t his boyfriend talking — it's the stress of a horrible day at work added up to his own trauma-colored glasses that almost cost them this love they share now. He’s about to respond when TK keeps on. “It’s not just tonight, Carlos. It's the afternoon that you vanished off the face of the Earth and I couldn’t reach you, and you said you had lost track of time. It's the mysterious box you keep inside your closet and the defensive stance you get whenever I ask about it. I don't need another Alex in my life!”</p><p>“Now that's just mean, Tyler,” Carlos manages to spit out, completely taken aback by TKʼs words. “I thought we were past that.” </p><p>“You keep avoiding the issue,” TK accuses. “You’re lying to me. You're lying to everyone! I—I can't be here. I can't look at you. Here,” he fishes the copy of the keys Carlos gave him so many months ago and he places them forcefully on top of the counter. “I don't think I can have these. Take them back.”</p><p>Carlos can't stop TK when he turns around and stomps away, the door banging closed with so much force that Carlos can hear one of the hinges — that he should have changed a while ago — cracking down. He can, however, run after his boyfriend and scream at his wake, “I just wanted to have a lifetime with you! I was going to promise you forever tonight!” </p><p>Carlos can see TK stopping dead in his tracks, and he takes it as a good sign. He keeps talking. “I even have a ring, TK. I was talking to my sister because I wanted to share this with her. I know you two would be best friends in no time. And I know your thoughts on marriage, so I wasn't going to pressure you. This is just a promise of forever.” </p><p>TK shrugs. Carlos is fairly certain that his shoulders are shaking, but TK doesn’t turn around when he replies, “Why would you want forever with someone like me?” before running away into the dark streets. </p><p>Carlos calls after him, even though he knows it's not going to change anything. Besides, he’s still barefoot, so he canʼt follow TK. Instead, Carlos enters back into his apartment, cursing the door that's now impossible to fully close unless he kicks it.</p><p>He doesn’t want to do that, just in case TK comes back tonight — if he kicks the door closed, maybe it won’t open from the outside again, and he canʼt afford TK rethinking about their fight only to come back and find out he can’t enter the apartment. Carlos has promised himself that he would never hurt TK, and inadvertently he has.</p><p>He chooses to pick up his phone and heads to the living room, where he grabs a piece of paper and a pen to write down some ideas. Maybe he could leave the letter into TKʼs locker tomorrow, in case TK doesn’t come back tonight. Carlos doesn’t like the idea of a night when TK doesn’t come back. </p><p>He checks his phone and sees he has a text from Michelle. </p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>
    
  </p>
</div><p>Carlos curses under his breath. TK had been spooked by the call and the subsequent result, and Carlosʼ actions from these past weeks have just added fuel to a fire that was waiting for the worst moment to explode. Rationally, Carlos knows he hasnʼt done anything wrong — but going off the radar to buy a ring and talking in hushed tones on the phone can easily be mistaken. He sees that now. </p><p>He also knows that TK is proud enough, stubborn enough, not to come back tonight. </p><p>Thatʼs why he’s more than surprised when he hears the hinges of the front door creaking. He knows he has to fix it, but maybe it can wait. </p><p>“TK? Is that you?” he says as he stands up off the couch and takes a tentative step toward the door, the half-written letter clutched in his hand. “TK?” </p><p>“Not TK, you disgusting faggot,” says a voice he doesn’t recognize. He sees a couple of teenagers that stare defiantly back at him in his own house. </p><p>“You’re trespassing,” he warns them. “I’m a cop. You shouldn’t be doing this.” </p><p>“Faggot is a cop,” one of the teenagers tells the other. There's a blinding reflection in his hand; Carlos could swear it's a knife. “Guess you're up for a lesson, then.” </p><p>Before he can even react, one of them is moving so fast his limbs seem liquid, and after that everything becomes a blur of movement and pain until his world finally fades to black.</p>
<hr/><p>There are just so many places where he could go right now, but TK knows there’s only one where he really <i>wants</i> to be. He just doesn’t think he’ll be welcomed into Carlos’ apartment once again, not after the horrible things he’s said to his boyfriend — is Carlos still his boyfriend, though, after everything that has transpired tonight — but he doesn’t feel like coming home to his father would help any matter on the issue at hand.</p><p>He’s never been distrusting of his partners. In fact, TK has always relied on his boyfriends to tell him everything they felt — and until Alex, TK had thought it was a good strategy. He opened himself raw for them, and he expected his boyfriends to be equally sincere with him. Alex had ruined that for him, and now everything TK feels — everything he experiences — is tainted by the blurred glasses of unrequited love and rejection.</p><p>Even his relationship with Carlos is now another broken piece of the puzzle that his life has become.</p><p>Tyler Kennedy Strand, unable to trust, unable to love, unable to <i>live</i>.</p><p>When has he become this ugly, jaded version of himself he doesn’t even recognize in the mirror in the morning?</p><p>He stops his race to nowhere abruptly, coming to halt on the curb. He places his hands on his knees, hoping to catch his breath some, when realization hits him. He’s left Carlos after a fight because he thought Carlos was cheating on him, when all Carlos had wanted was to build a future together. It wasn’t even a marriage proposal — it was a promise of forever, because TK is much of a scared shit to even accept that he wants to marry Carlos Reyes.</p><p>He wants to spend the rest of his life with Carlos, despite the fact that the last time he proposed to someone he got his heart handed back in a plate, slandered and bleeding.</p><p>TK needs to go back to Carlos’ apartment and beg for forgiveness. </p><p>He needs to make it up to Carlos.</p><p>TK turns around without catching his breath enough, and begins strutting in the opposite direction. He has only run for a few blocks, hopefully not long enough for Carlos to have given up on him yet. </p><p>“God, please, don’t let Carlos give up on me,” he mutters under his breath as he moves his feet, one in front of the other, back to where he’s tried to escape barely half an hour ago.</p><p>He reaches Carlos’ street quicker than he thought, before he can make up his mind about what he’s going to say or how he’s going to approach the subject that’s placed a wedge between them. </p><p>How he’s going to tell Carlos that, as fucked up and broken as he is, TK wants that forever with him.</p><p>When he gets to Carlos’ building, he can tell something is wrong. A couple of teenagers wearing dark, stained hoodies covering half of their faces come out of the main door, howling wordlessly as they disappear into the darkness. TK can’t help but notice their hands, noticeably bruised even under the dim street lamps' light. He frowns, but he doesn’t have the time nor the intention to stop them and ask what’s wrong. He needs to be somewhere else right now.</p><p>Burying deep down the feeling that something’s inherently out of place, he takes a turn to the right and chooses to enter Carlos’ place from the direct access door it has, separated from the rest of the building, even though the apartment has another entrance through the building portal.</p><p>The first thing he notices is that the door opens effortlessly under his pressure.</p><p>The second thing that he notices is that the entrance cabinet is busted, doors unhinged and contents spread throughout the floor as though someone had collided against it before scattering its contents. </p><p>“Carlos?” he calls out cautiously. He steps around the disaster on the ground, wishing he’d have some weapon to protect himself — and Carlos — from the invisible threat he feels hovering over them right now. “Carlos, where are you?”</p><p>There’s a spluttering coming from the living room, but nothing that tells TK whether it’s from Carlos or from whoever has done this to the entrance furniture. He tiptoes around the wreckage and reaches the living room; he has to swallow hard to keep the memories of what has just transpired there between them away before he sets foot into it. He doesn’t want the memory of their recent fight to cloud whatever’s happening right now. He closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and chooses to step forward.</p><p>He has a feeling he will need all his strength focused on the now instead of focused on what could have been.</p><p>When he opens his eyes, he believes he’s stepped into one of Dante’s circles of hell.</p><p>The whole living room is turned upside down; the lamp that used to be by the couch is destroyed against the nearest wall, the coffee table is broken down to splinters that have flown everywhere — TK thinks he sees one nailed to the dining table where Carlos once cooked for him during their first date that turned out to be another disaster. There are dark stains marring almost every surface, glass and wood and some debris from frayed fabrics splashed throughout the whole room. </p><p>There’s a painting on the wall, just above the couch where he loves to lounge with nothing to do but check Carlos up and down. </p><p>
  <i>faggot</i>
</p><p>He has to hold the nausea back at the sight. </p><p>The secondary door that opens to the common spaces of the building is broken open, meanwhile the door leading to the main bedroom and the bathroom is closed; TK believes that whatever happened here, it didn’t go further into the place. He’s too entranced by the whole scene in front of him that he almost misses the source of the spluttering he’s heard before — the sound that’s attracted him inside.</p><p>In the middle of the room, in a spot where TK shouldn’t have missed him, Carlos lies on his back, eyes closed and mouth slightly open. He has his shirt stained red, and his right leg is bent in such an awkward angle that TK thinks he’s seeing the bone peeking out from the flesh. Both his arms are spread angel-like at his sides, and he’s moving his fingers in an attempt to grasp something for balance, as though he’s falling even though he’s already on the floor.</p><p>TK feels like being sick, but the nausea wears off and he’s left with a nothingness that's worse than all the lies he’s spewed barely an hour ago. </p><p>It takes a minute for his first responder instincts to kick in, and by that moment he already knows he’s wasted so much time assessing the situation.</p><p>Wordlessly, because he doesn’t have any sound left in him, he kneels beside Carlos as he takes his phone out of his pocket in one swift movement, dialing 911 on the go, as he checks for a pulse. He begins freaking out when he doesn’t find it. His free hand roams over Carlos’ figure, spasming and seizing. It’s weird to see him like that — Carlos has always felt so collected, so invincible, that TK can’t reconcile the image he has of his boyfriend with the grotesque in front of him. Carlos’ upper lip is busted, and he can see a couple of teeth broken; his neck is beginning to sport a purplish bruise, and there are cuts and other bruises across his chest. He can even see stab wounds that stare angrily up at him, accusing him without words of a crime he feels guilty of. The shirt is ripped open, the buttons scattered all over the floor — TK thinks he’s kneeling over one or two — and the jeans are torn apart. Whoever has done this, TK thinks, must have hated Carlos so much. It’s a work of hatred, and he can’t think of anyone who deserves it less than Carlos Reyes.</p><p>“911, what’s your emergency?”</p><p>“Thank God, Grace,” he chokes on the phone. “It’s—it’s TK. TK Strand. Something—Grace, Carlos is hurt. Please send help.”</p><p>“Where are you, TK?” she asks, always the professional, typing away some details that TK doesn’t want to know. “Are you at Carlos’ apartment? What happened? How many injured are there?”</p><p>“Just—just Carlos,” TK stutters. “I don’t know what happened. We, uh, we were having dinner together at his place. I was out—I—it’s my fault, Grace. It’s my fault!”</p><p>“You need to remain calm, TK,” she tells him softly. “I know it’s difficult, but you need to. Just tell me what’s going on, whatever you can think that can be helpful. I’m sending help over to Carlos’ place. They should be there in five minutes.”</p><p>“Carlos doesn’t have five minutes!” he cries out. “I can’t find a pulse. Grace, I can’t find his pulse, I think he’s dead, why is he dead, Grace, I can’t—this can’t be happening, I can’t—” Just as his voice is trailing off, he finds the faintest of pulses on Carlos’ neck, his fingers skirting across an open wound that’s bleeding, staining his fingertips with a red liquid that doesn’t belong there.</p><p>TK doesn’t remember anything from then on, nothing that’s not Carlos’ heart beating in his chest. He focuses on keeping his boyfriend alive, even without knowing what’s happened or how he’s ended up bleeding out in his own living room floor, but TK knows he has to keep him alive.</p><p>He needs Carlos alive so he can apologize and tell him how sorry he is. What an asshole he can be. He needs Carlos alive so he can convince him that spending his life with the walking disaster that TK has become throughout the years isn’t a decision Carlos will ever come to regret in his life.</p><p>There’s a string of people barrelling into the apartment in what seems like a lifetime but it’s more likely the five minutes Grace warned him about. TK doesn’t register Michelle kneeling at the other side of Carlos’ body, but she nudges softly at his hands. “Hey, TK, we’re here now. We’re going to keep him alive, honey, but you need to let us help him.”</p><p>“Michelle,” he mutters, more to himself than to be heard. “I don't know what happened.” </p><p>“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Michelle tells him. Her hands flutter from one wound to another, pushing TKʼs out of the way. “Heʼll be fine. But you need to let us work. Tim,” she calls, and that single syllable is enough to make her teammate move. </p><p>TK finds himself being pulled on his feet, gently pushed away from Carlos, who's still lying lifeless on the floor, and he thinks fleetingly that the carpet is going to be ruined under so much blood. Bloodstains are difficult to get rid of, he thinks. </p><p>He must have said it out loud, for Tim tells him, “TK, you don't have to worry about that now. Iʼm sure we’ll find a way to dry clean the carpet when this is all over.” </p><p>TK nods but he isn’t really sure what heʼs agreeing to. All he can think about, all he can <i>see</i>, is Carlosʼ eyes closed and his blood rushing out of his veins instead of pumping through them. </p><p>Michelle is spitting orders left and right until she has Carlos on a gurney, wheeling him out of the room. </p><p>“TK,” he hears Tim saying his name but he doesn’t move. “TK, we have to go. We can't ride in the ambulance, but we can go in the second one Grace sent just in case.”</p><p>“I can't,” he mutters. His hands are tangled in his t-shirt, red against the white — he is never again wearing a white t-shirt to a date. He once got his heart broken after Alex rejected him, and now, after he thought there was nothing left in his chest to be broken he finds out a heart can be shredded to pieces with just one accurate stab.</p><p>“Why don't you try?” Tim says softly. “One step at a time.” </p><p>TK tries. He swears heʼs trying, but his shoes feel loaded and his legs are trembling and his heart seems to beat hard enough to break through his skin and heʼs hyperventilating and—</p><p>Everything goes black all of a sudden, but his head doesn’t hit the ground because Tim is already holding him. When he blinks awake heʼs staring at the ceiling of a moving vehicle. He panics; he attempts to move but his wrists are tied somehow and he doesn’t manage to even budge an inch. </p><p>“Easy there, TK,” Tim tells him somewhere above him. “You’re in an ambulance. Weʼre going to Austin General.” </p><p>“Where's Carlos?” TK asks, straining his wrists but the restraints don't give out. </p><p>“Michelleʼs radioed, they're almost there. Heʼll make it,” Tim reassures him. </p><p>“Untie me,” TK protests feebly. </p><p>“I can't. It's protocol. You're in a gurney in a moving ambulance, you have to be tied. Weʼre almost there.”</p><p>“Why arenʼt we there yet?” TK questions. “Carlosʼ place isn’t that far.” </p><p>“Apparently there’s been a bigger accident and the hospital is swamped. It's going to take us a bit.” </p><p>“But Carlos—” </p><p>“Michelleʼs with him,” Tim cuts him. “Now, stop fidgeting. You need to remain calm or else you're going to have another panic attack.” </p><p>TK lies down completely still, more still than heʼs ever been in his own life. He prays to the powers that be that they reach the hospital in time — accident or not, he needs Carlos to be helped and healed back to life. He doesn’t think he's ever going to get over the sight of his boyfriendʼs life scurrying away through TKʼs fingers as he tried to contain the ocean of red flowing out.</p>
<hr/><p>Everything hurts. Carlos comes to with a loud groan, his limbs tingling. He doesn’t know where he is or how heʼs ended up there — he only knows that his whole body aches. </p><p>“Easy there, Carlos,” he hears by his head. He canʼt look up — he finds out his neck hurts too much and when he tries to lift one hand he discovers his wrists are tied. </p><p>“Michelle,” he wheezes out. His throat feels parched; there’s a weird sound that he doesn’t reconcile with Michelleʼs presence that gets him worried. “What happened?” </p><p>“Youʼll be fine,” Michelle tells him. Her hand grazes his cheek in a gentle gesture and that's when he realizes whatʼs so shocking to him — Michelle is crying. </p><p>Michelle Blake hasn't openly cried in public ever since she thought her sister was dead. </p><p>A thought assaults him suddenly. He knows something must have happened — he can feel the movement of the ambulance beneath his body, spread on a gurney, so he <i>must</i> have been in some sort of accident. He still feels his legs and the pain crashing through them, and the little he can see of his attire lets him know that he hasnʼt been in some sort of incident at work — unless he’s gone to his shift wearing his nicest jeans and one dress shirt. </p><p>“TK?” he slurs. He would panic at his inability to even pronounce a simple syllable without losing track of the sound, but his mind is too busy whirling around the fact that TK isn’t riding the ambulance with him. </p><p>TK would have been a storm inside the moving vehicle, asking about everything and freaking over every single aspect of Michelleʼs work. </p><p>“Heʼs fine.” Michelle lifts his arm as she replies, checking something that doesn’t please her, for she keeps up, “Carlos, I need you to stay awake, okay? Please don't fall asleep.” </p><p>“It- it's difficult,” Carlos mutters. He doesn’t know when exactly his eyelids have become so heavy but they're dropping down, his eyelashes brushing intermittently his cheeks as he fights the sudden sleepiness taking over him. </p><p>“Dammit, Carlos, don't do this to me,” Michelle commands as she picks something from behind her; Carlos feels the prickling of a needle against the skin in his left arm. He wants to tell her that it isn’t necessary — she knows he hates needles — but a wave of pain sweeps over him and he canʼt stop the seizure. His whole body arches over the gurney; heʼs unable to control his own reactions. </p><p>“ETA on arrival?” Michelle shouts at the driver, but Carlos doesn’t get to listen to the reply. </p><p>Darkness claims him as he hears Michelle calling his name in the distance. </p><p>The next time he wakes up, he’s still in the ambulance but the vehicle is halted, the siren deafening in its intensity. But it isn’t as loud as Michelleʼs expletives as she hits the back of the ambulance with her bare hands. </p><p>“Fuck it, fuck it, fuck <i>it</i>,” she’s crying out. “Not today of all days, please, not today!” </p><p>He groans again, effectively catching her attention even if he hadn’t aimed for that in the beginning. </p><p>“Hey, Carlos, you awake?” she says, rushing to lean into him, checking his vitals over every single noise crowding the space. His senses are starting to be overwhelmed at the myriad of stimuli attacking him. </p><p>“Hurts,” it's all he can say, mouth feeling laden with a taste he doesn’t like. </p><p>He canʼt even form a full sentence. </p><p>“I know, sweetie, I know. We will be entering the hospital soon, honey. It's just that tonightʼs been a hell of a night and they're a bit, uh, they're too busy,” she finishes lamely. </p><p>“I—” </p><p>“Don't try to talk, it'll only be exhausting for you. You have to save all your energy now.” </p><p>There’s a painful pulse throbbing in the side of his neck that's sucking off all of Carlosʼ energy. He wishes he could tell Michelle, but his speech seems impaired at the moment. If the look she’s avoiding to give him is any indication, he must be in real death danger. Michelle Blake looks everything and everyone in the eye, she doesn't relent. She fights back. </p><p>The only time heʼs seen his friend crumbling down was at her father's funeral — and Carlos has never seen Michelle as broken as then. He’s seen her cracking her soul scars. He’s seen her getting on her feet amidst the shambles of her life after Iris vanished. He’s seen her prove that the only reason Icarus had failed wasn't because he tried to fly too close to the sun — it had been because he hadn’t had a good support system. </p><p>Carlos feels that the lack of eye contact with Michelle speaks volumes about what's going on. </p><p>“Hey, chica,” he tries, but a cough takes over his throat and he almost chokes on it. </p><p>“Youʼll be fine, Lito,” she promises, using the diminutive he's told her a million times that it doesn’t apply to <i>Carlos</i> — she’s always ignored him. “You have to be.” </p><p>“Tell TK—” he begins, only to be cut off by a violent cough that forces his whole body to arch on the gurney. “Tell him it's not his fault.” </p><p>“You tell him yourself,” Michelle says as the beeping in the machine goes crazy. </p><p>Carlos is feeling more and more tired with every passing second, and the prospect of sleeping even for a moment is more appealing the longer he thinks about it. “Tell him I love him,” he wants to say but he isn’t sure about how it sounds when the words leave his mouth, for he can feel his speech slurring. </p><p>Michelle is openly crying now as she checks the machine and curses aloud. “Don't you fucking <i>dare</i> die on me, Reyes! Do you hear me? I’m not losing you too!” </p><p>She’s screaming as she pushes something into a vial he hasnʼt seen before, but that is hooked to his arm. She lifts one finger and counts; Carlos can see her eyes welling up as she waits for whatever it is she’s given him to kick in and stabilize his vitals. </p><p>Carlos tries to calm her, to tell her that heʼs not going anywhere, but there’s something keeping his tongue from moving, and suddenly he feels like heʼs suffocating. He’s exhausted from fighting the weight on his eyelids and heʼs pretty sure his lungs are giving up, although he doesn’t know why — he canʼt remember what happened, he doesn’t have any recollection as to why heʼs in such a state that even Captain Michelle <i>You Won’t See Me Crying</i> Blake is losing her cool inside of a stopped ambulance. </p><p>Why is he going to the hospital? Why isn’t the ambulance moving? </p><p>He fights for air, but there’s a strange feeling in his chest that prevents him from breathing in — there’s a tightness he doesn’t recognize, and the weird notion that he canʼt breathe because he's choking on some liquid. The taste tells him that it's blood just as he realizes that heʼs going to choke to death if Michelle doesn’t stop the bleeding. </p><p>He also knows that, based only on the points of searing pain through his body, he has less and less chances to make it if they don’t take him to an operation room soon. He can feel his own pulse on his neck, and fluid oozing out of at least three different wounds on his side. </p><p>He can also feel his conscience slipping. </p><p>“Michelle,” he whispers, his voice barely above a weaning thread. “Mʼchelle.” </p><p>“Don't talk,” she instructs him, focusing once again on him as the beeping in the machines slow down to a pace she seems to find adequate. “Save your strength, Carlos. You’ll need it when you get discharged. Your boy is going to kill you.”</p><p>“TK,” he whimpers. The feeling of choking has receded some, but he still thinks he isn’t getting enough air in his lungs. “TK.”</p><p>“Can you please stop talking?” Michelle insists. “Don’t make me muzzle you. You could have your lungs punctured, but I can’t know for sure. And this damned shit just won’t move!”</p><p>Carlos closes his eyes just for one second while Michelle keeps cursing under her breath and checking everything twice, thinking that it won’t hurt anyone if he just falls asleep — maybe it could even help with his healing.</p><p>Next thing he knows, he’s staring at himself — or at a version of himself when he was eight — sitting on the floor at Michelle’s family house, a toy police car in his hands. He blinks once, twice, but the image doesn’t budge — if anything, the edges of reality are a bit blurry, as though he's watching an old movie. <i>This might be a dream</i>, he thinks. <i>I’m delirious</i>. As he moves around the scene he’s witnessing, he remembers what transpired that night — the call and the tears and Michelle’s mother telling him that everything would be fine while his own mother was fleeing to another country to retrieve something that could never be what his father had meant to all of them.</p><p>Carlos watches as Theresa Blake opens the door to her husband, Officer Blake from Austin Police Department, followed by Amalia. He remembers that conversation just as if it has happened a few hours ago — the words that changed everything.</p><p>“There’s military police at the Reyes’,” Officer Blake says in an even voice, just like Carlos remembers him.</p><p>“God, no,” Ms. Blake gasps as she ushers Amalia inside. His sister goes to sit by his younger self’s side; he isn’t fazed by the grown-ups. Carlos remembers being so used to the adults talking in hushes and whispers around him, ever since his father was deployed, that he can filter it out in his head while he plays with his toy car.</p><p>Amalia comes to sit with him. His teenage sister, whoʼs one step away from joining the Marines just like their parents, pats his shoulder gently. She nudges him when he doesn’t acknowledge her presence. </p><p>“Carlitos,” she says softly. “Cariño, I need you to listen to me.” </p><p>“Iʼm playing!” he complains. </p><p>“Yeah? What are you playing at?” </p><p>“I’m a police officer like Iris’ Dad,” he explains. “I’m chasing the bad guys with my police car.” </p><p>“Don't you want to be like Mom and Dad?” </p><p>“No, I don't,” he shakes his head. “Irisʼ Dad is always home. He isn’t away fighting the bad guys. I want to be here so Mom and Dad know there’s always someone to come back to.” </p><p>Amalia bites back a sob, hiding behind her hand, before she hugs him. “Carlitos, you have to be strong, okay? I need you to be a big boy.” </p><p>The edges of the memory fade away, taking with it the grief that it gave them all. It turns to his own living room, where he’s called to after a horrible fight with TK that's started because of something so silly that Carlos can't believe it got so big of an argument. He sees a couple of strangers — teenagers, probably from his neighborhood — brandishing a knife and calling him names as though they had known him. He feels once again the fear at what was happening, the pain of the first stab and his own attempt at fighting back, diminished because he didn’t want to hurt underaged kids who didn't know what they were doing. </p><p>The first injury that draws blood convinces him that this attack has been carefully prepared and his assailants had been waiting to get him alone. </p><p>The scene morphs until heʼs back blinking up at the ambulance ceiling; Michelle is opening the doors and heʼs being wheeled out among shouted orders and whispered secrets, but his pain comes back full force as the memory disappears entirely and Carlosʼ eyesight blurs until he canʼt see anything. He freaks out, grasping blindly at anything he can grab so he doesn’t have to lose the last moment of pure happiness heʼs ever experienced — until he met TK, that's it. </p><p>TK. He canʼt begin to imagine how terrified and lost his boyfriend must be feeling. He needs to find him, to tell him that they’re going to survive this new obstacle, but there’s no one around him all of a sudden. </p><p>Carlos is left alone in darkness while the memory of the night they found out his father had been killed in action somewhere as far away as Afghanistan. Long lost are the days when he naïvely believed police officers were superheroes who always came back home. Long lost is the belief that he would ever get over his father's passing. </p><p>He tries to call Michelle, but his tongue is stuck inside his mouth and his limbs feel heavier than ever. He canʼt find her anywhere, and heʼs beginning to feel the cold creeping up his legs to his heart. He starts shouting wordlessly, just the raw sound of his voice breaking a silence that feels immense in its depth. </p><p>He’s all alone.</p>
<hr/><p>Fortunately, they reach the hospital soon enough that TK doesn’t completely lose his mind. Tim explains to him that he’s fainted, probably due to the shock of the scene he just witnessed, but they haven't administered any drugs to him. Tim has just waited for him to wake up. </p><p>TK is able to stumble out of the ambulance without aid. Tim follows him closely as he makes his way into the hospital and asks for Carlos. He is aware of how scary he must look like — of how scared he <i>feels</i>. If his face is a reflection of his soul, then whenever he looks at himself in a mirror he must see desperation clouding his features, just as he feels the weight of the grief in his bones. </p><p>Michelle comes to his rescue among the sea of faceless people in the waiting room. “Here, TK,” she calls for him, waving until he notices her. </p><p>“Where is Carlos?” he questions, not wasting time in niceties. “How is he?” </p><p>Michelle pats his arm as she helps him sit down. “Right now heʼs in surgery. He has three broken ribs on either side, a broken femur and at least fifteen stab wounds in total to his whole body. They cracked—” she had to stop to keep her tears at bay. TK lets out a strangled sob, because he knows what she’s about to say even though he hasnʼt been there to listen to the doctors. “They cracked his head open, TK. He has a concussion and they're hoping the swelling winds down with the second surgery they'll perform.” </p><p>“Second surgery? I don't think I understand. Is he going to be okay?” </p><p>“I don’t know,” Michelle whispers. There’s a hint of sincerity in her words that baffles TK. </p><p>He canʼt do this. He canʼt lose Carlos. </p><p>“Will you stay with me?” he begs of her. “I don't want to be alone.”</p><p>“Of course,” she promises. </p><p>So they remain sitting there, waiting for the doctors to come out, and when they do — when they tell them that Carlos should make it but it's all touch and go for at least the following seventh-two hours — Michelle holds TKʼs hand, whispering comforting words into his ear. </p><p>When the rest of the crew shows up, his father leading them, TK allows himself to break down in tears until the hours mesh into days and he loses track of time, with only the sight of Carlos on a bed and the memories of the words they exchanged as travel companions in the journey heʼs forced to begin now. </p><p>He spends two days in the hospital, first in the waiting room and then in and out of the room where Carlos is being treated. His father tries to make him eat and sleep properly — or as properly as he can think of, given the circumstances — but TK has the feeling that he’s only waiting with half his soul on a hospital bed. He’s on standby, barely hanging on a thread of hope that doesn’t feel enough. </p><p>On the first day after the attack, with virtually no sleep under his belt, TK is still trying to find his footing. He’s burning a hole on the floor wherever he paces outside the room where Carlos has been taken after the surgery to fix his broken leg and his several cracked ribs. When heʼs inside, he tries his best to be quiet, to speak in hushed tones — it's easier to believe that Carlos is asleep than to acknowledge that his brain is so swollen, his injuries so grave, that he canʼt wake up on his own. The most terrifying thoughts assault him when his father leaves him alone, without the presence of anyone who could shield him from himself. </p><p>Carlos can't breathe for himself, his lungs pierced by the broken ribs, and TK is facing a world where he might need to go on without his boyfriend. </p><p>After Michelle has to leave, not before harassing the doctor into giving her as much information as possible, Carlosʼ partner shows up. Dan Kapinski isn’t what he looks like — the sturdy tough police officer who's in his last years of active duty before being sent to do a different desk job. TK knows Kapinski loves Carlos a lot, and that's been evident ever since he took the younger rookie under his wing when Carlos was fresh out of the Academy. </p><p>“Strand,” he greets, sitting beside him outside the room. He doesn’t even spare a glance inside. “Howʼre you holding up?” </p><p>“Been better,” TK sighs, rubbing his face with already shaking fingers. “And I can't stop this shit,” he complains but his fingers won't stop trembling. </p><p>“You know I have to ask you some questions, right?” Kapinski begins, but he doesn’t take out his notebook. TK stares at him in silence. “You found Reyes. You're evidently not a suspect, but anything you remember could help us find the culprits.” </p><p>“I thought partners were always suspects.” </p><p>“This isn't a passionate crime, TK,” Kapinski explains. “There has been an increasing number of robberies and assaults around Carlosʼ neighborhood. We think that's what happened.” </p><p>“Isn’t this like, conflict of interest? You're Carlosʼ partner.” </p><p>“This is my family weʼre talking about,” Kapinski says hotly. “Captain knows better than to try and take any of us out of the case.”</p><p>TK nods. He’s grateful that Carlos has friends that feel so strongly about him. He answers all of Kapinskiʼs questions with the facts he remembers, as hurtful as they are — the fight, even though it could point back at him, the teenagers getting out of the building, the broken door and Carlos, Carlos, Carlos. </p><p>“Wait, you say there were teenagers getting out, with stained hoodies?” </p><p>“Yeah. I didn't think much of it. I don't know all of Carlosʼ neighbors. But I remember them.” </p><p>“I will send Gorge here to draw a portrait of what you remember,” Kapinski promises. “There’s a new gang around, and their initial rite seems to be hate crimes. This was a hate crime, TK, never forget that. We will find them and they will rot in jail.” Kapinski gets up, patting his shoulder once again. “Our tech has gone through Carlosʼ phone, there’s nothing suspicious there. Cap wants you to have it, so Iʼve charged the battery. It's all cleared.” </p><p>Kapinski offers TK a plastic bag with a few items inside — a wallet, a set of keys and a phone, all Carlosʼ. TK accepts it, biting down on his lip to keep the tears at bay. </p><p>“They're still combing the scene, so maybe something else shows up. I will keep you posted. I don’t think many of us can come visit, weʼre all taking double shifts so this is solved as soon as possible.” </p><p>“I will tell him you're working hard for him,” TK promises. </p><p>“Oh, and TK,” he says before leaving. “They had to call Alicia. Iʼm sorry about that. She’s Carlosʼ next of kin, and the hospital staff was only doing their jobs.” </p><p>TK nods. He doesn’t think he could say a word anyway, but the knowledge that Carlosʼ mother knows about what happened — that maybe this time she would care enough about her son to come back to Austin for him — nags at him. He canʼt believe he will most probably meet his mother-in-law in these circumstances.</p><p>He’s still alone when a phone starts ringing. It’s barely nine, nurses and doctors still going strong through the corridors checking on the patients. TK has got inside Carlosʼ room; there’s a really uncomfortable chair where he can spend the night if needed — as if heʼs going anywhere. His fatherʼs house hasnʼt felt like home for a long time, even if heʼs always been welcome there and he always will. It’s more like heʼs finally understood that home can be a person, and his is Carlos. </p><p>The phone keeps ringing, and heʼs about to start a riot when he realizes that it's Carlosʼ phone. Confused, he stares at the caller ID — <i>Amie</i> — and the same insecurities that led to their fight arise. TK debates with himself about picking up or not, because after all it's Carlos heʼs thinking about and heʼs all about consent and privacy. But when the sound dies only to restart again, TK makes a decision. </p><p>He swipes his finger over the screen and lifts the device to his ear. Before he can even say a thing, a female voice chirps in, “You heathen, I know youʼve been busy celebrating, but you could at least have sent a text to let me know things went fine!” </p><p>“Sorry, maʼam,” TK says automatically. He doesn’t know who this woman is — why would she think there’s anything worth celebrating — but he's always had manners. “I, uh, I—” </p><p>“Who are you?” the jovial voice turns sober and serious in a nanosecond, matching TK’s feelings. “I’m sure I haven’t dialed the wrong number, unless my brother’s number which I have on speed-dial is suddenly wrong.”</p><p>TK’s eyes widen in surprise, and a few things dawn on him all of a sudden — that he’s speaking to Carlos’ sister Amalia for the first time in his life, that he’s the one supposed to contact Carlos’ family in situations like this one, and that Carlos had been telling the truth during their fight.</p><p>He’s never felt more shame and guilt at the same time.</p><p>He knew Carlos has always been very private with his family; TK can understand that, for the tiny glimpses that his boyfriend has shared, his mother pretty much focused on her career when her husband died, and that his older sister had followed into the family’s legacy and joined the Marines. TK also has the inkling that Carlos’ mother never accepted that her son wasn’t going to be a military man nor that he was queer.</p><p>“Who are you?” the voice — Amalia’s — repeats. “Where’s Carlos? Are you TK?”</p><p>He blinks, shaking his head to clear it, and stutters, “I—I am TK.”</p><p>“Oh, great! I’m Amalia, Carlos’ sister. I take it things went well last night, huh? You didn’t run away? Welcome to the family!”</p><p>And just like that, TK starts crying. He hiccups, unable to form a complete sentence — and therefore scaring Amalia, if her increasingly worried tone is anything to go by — while he begins to tell her what happened to her brother and he apologizes for not calling her before.</p><p>Amalia turns out to be just as understanding as Carlos is. TK would think that it’s something that runs in the family if he wasn’t so intent on controlling his breathing so he doesn’t end up having another anxiety attack. He doesn’t want to risk it, Carlos needs him in full possession of whatever’s left of his sanity. </p><p>“I’m sorry we have to meet in these circumstances,” she tells him after they’ve switched to FaceTime. TK has been hesitant at first, because he’s sure he looks as devastated as he feels, but when he sees Amalia’s brown eyes — as warm and familiar as Carlos’ — he instantly relaxes. He’s already told her the medical report about Carlos, but it hasn’t helped to make him feel better. “I would’ve loved to meet you properly, and to tease Carlos to no end with you on my side.”</p><p>“Me too,” he whispers.</p><p>“Do you know what happened?” she asks. TK finds it a bit weird that she isn’t crying, or showing any kind of emotion over the video call, but he blames it on her military training. “I bet Kapinski is going rogue.”</p><p>“You know he is,” TK confirms. “And I don’t know. They say he was attacked by some members of a new gang. There have been several assaults in his neighborhood. The doctors say it’s still early to know. I—I don’t think I could make it if he doesn’t wake up.”</p><p>“He’s a stubborn Reyes,” she tells him. “He’s got that from Dad’s side of the family. He’ll get through it. And you don’t have to feel guilty. It’s <i>me</i> who should be feeling responsible for your fight, since it was because of our call.”</p><p>“It <i>wasn’t</i>,” TK quickly reassures her. “It was because I’m insecure and silly, and usually it would have ended up with us, ah, celebrating, as you kindly put it.”</p><p>“You couldn’t have anticipated this, TK. Believe me.” She looks away from the screen for a moment, and when she focuses back on the call her eyes are glistening with unshed tears. “Sadly, I have to go. Duty calls. I will try to get some days off, but if they’ve already called Mom then I doubt I will be able to leave Parris Island for this. She won’t allow it.”</p><p>“Why would she prevent you from coming?”</p><p>“Oh, TK,” she says fondly. “As much as I love my family, we’re not flawless. I’ll fight for it, but I know I won’t make it. When Carlos wakes up, tell him I’ll be there soon to kick his ass for scaring all of us.”</p><p>TK hangs up after exchanging a few more pleasantries with her, and he stares at the phone for the longest time. When Judd shows up, holding a bag with Grace’s famous pulled pork sandwich, he’s still unblinkingly looking at it.</p><p>“What’s wrong, TK? Any changes?” he questions, flopping down beside TK on another uncomfortable chair by Carlos’ side.</p><p>“No. I’ve just talked to Carlos’ sister, that’s all.” TK looks up at him, and he’s met with a sympathetic smile.</p><p>“Amalia? She’s a great woman, military and everything. She and I, we went to high school together. Incredible how both turned out to be, Carlos and Amalia.”</p><p>“Why do you say so?”</p><p>“You’ll understand once you meet the mother,” Judd says enigmatically before opening the bag and taking one sandwich out, pushing it toward TK. “Now eat. I don’t want Carlos to bite my head off when he wakes up and see we haven’t been feeding you properly.”</p><p>TK chuckles but accepts the sandwich. When he sinks his teeth into it, he has to suppress a moan, it’s so good. While he eats and chats with Judd, he manages to forget for a moment that he is in a hospital waiting on his boyfriend to wake up after a brutal assault, and that he’s spoken to Carlos’ sister for the first time over said assault.</p><p>He even forgets that Carlos’ mother is his next of kin and hence she’s going to be summoned to Carlos’ bedside sooner rather than later.</p><p>On the second day, when TK is getting out of the room to get a coffee as he’s using up yet another of his days off — his father has already promised to have his back, but there’s just so many things the new Captain of the 126 can do — a tornado dressed in fatigues storms through the reception and demands to see Carlos Reyes’ doctors. TK’s alone, so he doesn’t have any support system when the tornado turns around at one of the nurses’ signal and makes her way toward him.</p><p>He stares at Alicia Reyes for the first time in his life like a deer caught in headlights.</p><p>“Are you Carlos’ doctor?” she asks without preamble. “Are you getting out of your shift or in? Why aren’t you wearing doctor scrubs? I knew I had to come. I need to take my baby out of here and into a good, military hospital.”</p><p>She’s like a spitfire, throwing questions at him that he doesn’t know how to answer, and he isn’t even sure that he’s not seeing a mirage. Carlos’ mother has always been this distant presence that loomed over his boyfriend’s head — TK’s heard stories about her and how much Carlos had missed her while growing up after his father died — but he hadn’t expected her to be just like everyone had been hinting at.</p><p>“I’m TK Strand,” he introduces himself, stretching his hand for her to shake it. She stares down at it before blatantly ignoring it. “I’m Carlos’ boyfriend. Nice to meet you, even if it’s under these circumstances.”</p><p>“Lieutenant General Alicia Reyes,” she says curtly. “Have you been here the whole time?”</p><p>TK has the feeling that he’s putting his foot in his mouth when he replies affirmatively, for a hint of anger flashes through her face for the briefest of moments before she schools her features. TK frowns as she plaster a cold smile on her face and steps away from him.</p><p>“I’m going to talk to his doctors,” she announces. “I plan on staying here until he wakes up, as it’s my right,” she keeps going. A sense of dread fills TK’s spirit upon hearing her words. “I suppose I won’t be seeing anyone who’s not family swarming around his room, will I?”</p><p>TK splutters and stammers, but Alicia Reyes has already turned around and clicked her heels away to the nurses’ station, already demanding at the top of her lungs every detail about Carlos’ condition, not minding him anymore.</p><p>He’s never felt more alone and dejected in his life.</p>
<hr/><p>The pain jolts Carlos out of the darkness to a white-lit corridor as heʼs wheeled forward. He doesn’t remember even getting into the hospital, but he's reminded of Michelleʼs impotent demeanor when he hears a doctor calling out for reinforcements because their patient was barely alive as it is. </p><p>He realizes distantly that <i>he</i> is the patient before surrendering to the darkness once again. </p><p>This time he doesn’t come back to his childhood. Whatever the other memory was — wherever it was coming from — it's no longer materializing in front of him. This time, heʼs an outsider to the moment when he realized that TK was the one for him. The blurring at the edges of the scene is another tell-tale sign that this is a memory, one he cherishes. </p><p>The solar flares are up in the sky, dyeing everything with a shade of bright green. Carlos has been waiting outside the firehouse just like TK had told him to, until he sees the trucks and the ladders coming back. He knows TK is going to come clean to his team because theyʼve already discussed it — ever since TK woke up from his medical-induced coma after being shot, they have been talking about lots of things, except about the more important topics at hand. Carlos doesn’t know where they stand right now, because their conversation from earlier got unceremoniously interrupted by a solar storm, and he would be lying if he said he isn’t a little bit nervous. </p><p>He’s always known that TK wasn't ready for a relationship. He got a glimpse of what it would be like to be beside TK during the process of rebuilding his life when he got arrested after a bar brawl, but Carlos had already been gone too far for such a cute firefighter that he knew it was a lost cause. </p><p>Carlos Reyes always falls fast and hard, so he always gets hurt in the same fashion, usually blindsided by the force of rejection. </p><p>This time it wouldn’t be any different, save for the fact that Carlos has never seen anyone looking back at him the way TK does. It gives him hope. </p><p>So he waits outside the fire station, shifting his weight between his legs, more nervous now than heʼd been the night they helped Paul back on his feet after his failed date. Back then, Carlos hadnʼt known how Paul would react to him being in his corner, but now his heart skips a couple of beats just by thinking that tonight will change his whole world. </p><p>He knows that if TK rejects him, heʼll accept the crumbs of a friendship just because he canʼt stand the idea of TK not being in his life. Still, he harbors the hope that he wonʼt be coming back home single tonight. </p><p>TK falls into his arms with one foot barely out of the station, his whole body pliant under Carlosʼ embrace. He kisses TKʼs neck and leads him to the Camaro. </p><p>The memory, because that's what memories do, fast-forwards to the moment when TK confesses — in that lovely, shy way of his — that he's scared but he wants them to try. He wants to see if they can be good together. </p><p>Carlos already knows that they will be unstoppable together. </p><p>He feels the pull of reality as the image fades away, leaving him once again gasping for air in a moving gurney. The lights above dance before his eyes, making him squint and blink. He’s being led to a surgery room, from what he can gather from the words the people pushing the gurney are saying. He tries to move, but his whole body hurts like a bitch — like he’s been kicked and dragged around. No one seems to notice he’s awake, and he closes his eyes once again. Whatever happens now, he knows that he’s in good hands. He’s at a hospital, after all. He’s being taken care of.</p><p>But soon he finds out that closing his eyes doesn’t always equal to darkness and soft memories of soft boys asking for a second chance. Closing his eyes can also mean coming back to his own apartment, a few hours before — or was it days ago, he can’t know for sure — and he’s watching at himself, once again blurred at the seams of reality, standing in the middle of his living room clutching a letter in his hands. It doesn’t get easier to go back to moments of his life, and he still doesn’t understand how it works, how he’s able to stand outside one of his memories even if he doesn’t even remember living through it.</p><p>But, however this works, Carlos is just witnessing the moment when a couple of teenagers slip past the broken door and begin verbally attacking him. He wants to warn the Carlos in the memory to physically kick them out, to pick up his phone and call Kapinski or whoever is still at the precinct, but he finds himself opening his mouth with no sound getting out. He has no voice, he realizes, because he isn’t really there.</p><p>He isn’t <i>anywhere</i>.</p><p>All he can do is watch helplessly as the teenagers in the memory stomp all over his place, throwing the vase where he keeps the flowers TK loves, shredding the throw blanket he has on top of the couch, pushing him and kicking him when he’s lying on the floor. Carlos is forced to watch at his own blurry self, faded at the edges of an image he wasn’t supposed to live through, as the teenagers take out a knife and walk menacingly toward his prone figure. The Carlos on the floor is clutching his side with one hand, the other lifted to feel an injury in his head that’s barely begun to bleed. If Carlos has learned something in his years as a cop, is that head wounds always bleed a lot — and they can mean bleeding out. A thought surprises him as he watches from the sidelines, one of the teenagers kneeling beside him while the other baits on him to take that last step and stab the man lying on the floor.</p><p>Carlos doesn’t understand why he’s having those memories, unless they’re not memories at all.</p><p>Unless he’s dead, or dying, and he’s seeing all the traumatic events of his life marching in front of him like a last-wish charade until he runs out of bad memories — and good ones too — until his existence is reduced to just one line on the sand. Until he’s forgotten by everyone who ever knew him. Until no one thinks of him again, just like the movies; until he’s not a memory for anyone and time has conveniently erased him from history.</p><p>He bites back a sob as he watches the teenager stab him once, twice, viciously piercing his skin while he’s at his lowest. He hears himself on the floor whining, writhing in an attempt to dodge yet another blow and not succeeding at it. He watches on as his lying self loses consciousness — and he thanks God for that tiny thread of compassion — and the teenager who hasn’t stabbed him coaxes the one who already has, hands red with his blood and face bewildered in shock, so together they write on the wall above his couch. Carlos feels like puking right there and then, and when he dry heaves he remembers that he isn’t corporeal.</p><p>The teenagers escape after finishing their bloody mischief, among cries of a name that Carlos faintly recognizes as the new gang that’s been devastating his neighborhood. He tries to leave, willing himself to just vanish from this particular scene, but he finds himself stuck in place. At one moment, maybe a lifetime later or just a few minutes, TK rushes in and halts at the sight. Carlos knows the moment TK sees the word, screaming out loud from the wall, written in red with Carlos’ blood.</p><p><i>FAGGOT</i>.</p><p>The image fades to the moment TK places a hand on his blood, searching for a pulse, for a reason to believe that they haven’t run out of luck. And Carlos remembers then, looking at his boyfriend losing his cool and muttering something about how everything is his fault. He remembers the fight, he remembers the words they exchanged, he remembers the helplessness. He remembers writing a letter that’s now soaked in blood beneath the body bleeding out on the floor. He remembers Michelle getting inside and taking over.</p><p>Carlos remembers giving up.</p><p>The image dissolves right as his heart stops beating for the first time.</p>
<hr/><p>When he opens his eyes, heʼs disoriented for a moment, unsure of where he is and why his neck hurts and how long heʼs been in the same position for his fingers to have gone numb under the weight of his body against the mattress. He sighs, sitting up on the uncomfortable chair, and he looks around, not quite completely awake. </p><p>The beeping grounds him, memories of the past hours — or has it been days — rushing back to his mind as he rubs his eyes to chase the slumber away. </p><p>Everywhere he looks, everything is white — white walls around him, white sheets on the bed, white chairs on the floor, white blinds over the windows. He bites back a groan of despair. As much as he loves the light that white provides — such a wonderful, neutral color — he canʼt help the shivers it sends down his spine when he remembers. </p><p>When he realizes that it hasn't been a bad dream. </p><p>His eyes land on the bed, where the beeping of the machines keeps life from seeping through the cracks of horrendous realities. It’s difficult for him to reconcile the idea of life he has in his mind with the image of a slender body underneath the sheets, eyes closed and breathing steady if only because one of the multiple machines currently wired is helping with the intake of oxygen. </p><p>A hand lands on his shoulder, startling him. When he looks up, Judd and Grace are already inside the room. The firefighter squeezes his shoulder softly, a small gesture to let him know he’s not alone.</p><p>“Have you been here all night?” Grace asks him while Judd grabs a couple of chairs and drags them to the other side of the hospital bed. “You need to go back home and sleep in an actual bed, TK.”</p><p>“I just can’t,” he mumbles. Grace sighs, but she doesn’t say anything else about it. Instead, she smiles tightly at him and brings her hands together over her chest.</p><p>“Is it okay if we pray for a little while?” she questions politely, even though he’s sure she already knows his answer.</p><p>“I’m sure he would appreciate it. God knows I do.”</p><p>Grace nods slightly before she starts whispering a string of litanies that are meant to be comforting but all they do is help his heart sink even further. As white as the room is, his soul feels darker within each passing second. Not even the presence of the family he’s chosen for himself can appease the sorrow that’s threatening to choke him.</p><p>There’s a lump in his throat that refuses to leave him, and TK really should begin getting used to the guilt that has taken his heart hostage ever since he learned his whole world had stopped spinning at its normal pace. He’s been on stand-by for the most part of the past nine days and a half, and for the time span of two hundred and almost thirty hours TK’s whole existence has been so abruptly halted that he feels as though he might fall off the face of the Earth if he so much as breathes in too deeply.</p><p>He doesn’t notice the passing of time; he <i>does</i> know that at some point Grace stops muttering prayers and Judd offers to go pick some coffee at the hospital’s cafeteria, but that’s all. If anyone asked him, he wouldn’t be able to read his wristwatch. Time doesn’t have any resemblance of importance in his life any longer.</p><p>“Son,” his father calls out to him, and it’s when that voice finds its way through his dulled brain that TK realizes that there’s light coming through the half-closed window when just a moment before — or maybe a quarter of a lifetime ago — there only was the dusk awaiting sunrise. “Have you had anything to eat?”</p><p>TK shakes his head. While it’s easier to feign being a functional human being around other people, he can’t plaster a fake smile on and lie to his father — Owen Strand has seen him at his lowest and he hasn’t run away in the opposite direction, he still can tear down TK’s walls with just one arched eyebrow. </p><p>“I supposed so much,” his father says as he gingerly sits down on one of the chairs that Judd or Grace have vacated at some point — TK hasn’t even noticed he was alone. “I brought you something,” he keeps on, waving a paper bag in front of him.</p><p>TK can see it swaying over the hospital bed, and he can even imagine the crumbs of whatever is inside falling down on the white sheets, marring the perfect image of calmness that’s only disrupted by the machines.</p><p>“I’m not hungry, Dad,” he mutters, his eyes coming back toward the figure on the bed, unmoving and uncharacteristically pale.</p><p>“You have to eat,” his father insists, opening the paper bag. The smell of freshly made bagels reaches TK’s nostrils, making his stomach rumble in reply, but he shakes his head stubbornly. “It’s your favorite.”</p><p>“I just can’t eat,” TK tells him, pointedly. He hopes his words manage to make his father understand that it’s physically impossible for him to keep any kind of food inside — he’s tried already, several times in the past week and a half, maybe longer than that, and everything he’s attempted to eat has invariably ended up somewhere outside his stomach. </p><p>“Try for me,” his father says, offering him one bagel out of the bag. It smells of cream cheese and turkey, maybe even some avocado, but TKʼs stomach churns and protests. “Son, you need to eat. You're not going to be of any help to Carlos if you don't take care of yourself.” </p><p>“I know,” he acquiesces. He canʼt bring himself to say anything else before the sound of heels tapping on the hospital floors interrupts him. “Carlosʼ momʼs already here.” </p><p>“The more reason for you to go back home and rest,” his father manages to say before Alicia Reyes barrels into the room. </p><p>“Good morning,” she greets them from the spot where she’s stopped, barely a foot away from the bed, waiting for them to look up at her. “I wasn't expecting you to be here,” she points out. “I thought we had agreed to that.” </p><p>It's not that TK doesn’t like Carlosʼ mother — she obviously cares about her son enough to set foot in the hospital while Carlos is injured. Maybe it is that Alicia reminds TK of his own mother, who loves him but is too busy making a career of her own to check in on him more than once every few months. Alicia Reyes isn’t quite like Gwenyth Strand — once she learned about her sonʼs condition she took the first red-eye back to Austin from wherever in the world she was, and she’s been a constant presence at Carlosʼ bedside. But TK can’t help the chill up his spine whenever she looks at him, weighing him down, as though she knows. </p><p>Maybe with her motherʼs powers she can tell that everything is TKʼs fault. </p><p>It doesn’t help matters that Alicia Reyes has rejected the mere idea of Carlos being in a relationship with TK — whether it is because she doesn’t like TK himself or because she has a problem with her son being queer, TK isn’t sure. But she’s been talking about how inappropriate it is for TK and the 126 to be around since she is already in Austin to take care of Carlos, and even though not even a solar storm would keep TK away from Carlos, heʼs beginning to squirm uncomfortable under Aliciaʼs scrutinizing eyes, to the point where he finds it easier to stay out of the room when she shows up. </p><p>That means spending the nights and visiting at odd hours, but he can do it. He can do anything for Carlos. </p><p>He’s about to greet her back, purposefully avoiding to address her animosity toward him, when a couple of nurses enter the room for the morning routine. They have already checked Carlos’ blood pressure and temperature sooner in the day, and now it’s time for them to go about washing up their patient. As much as it hurts him to think of Carlos like that, TK knows his boyfriend needs that routine. </p><p>Alicia tsks her tongue but she follows him and his father outside the room while the nurses work inside. TK rests his back against the nearest wall, his head hung forward as if it was too heavy for him to keep upright. He thinks that maybe he’s carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders, and Aliciaʼs inquisitive stare isn’t helping any matters. </p><p>“Have you been here the whole night?” she asks in a low, petulant voice. </p><p>“Yes, maʼam,” he whispers back. He doesn’t have any strength left to talk to her in a louder way. </p><p>He still remembers the first time he met her. Carlos always told him that Alicia Reyes had always been too busy to attend his soccer matches in high school, that sheʼd been working hard to sustain the family household after her husband Lorenzo had died in Afghanistan when Carlos had been eight. Alicia Reyes had always been a looming presence in her sonʼs life, and Carlos had never been quite keen on introducing her to TK. Therefore, TK had first met her when sheʼd arrived at Austin General Hospital two days after Carlos had been admitted, and sheʼd made quite the first impression on everyone — sheʼd talked up a storm with the doctors until they had told her every single detail about her sonʼs health and later sheʼd been completely baffled that her son had had a boyfriend she hadn't known anything about. </p><p>That had been a week ago and TK is still afraid of being in the same room with her on his own. </p><p>Thankfully, before Alicia can say something snarky enough for him to want to crawl out of the hospital and never come back, Dr. Martinson approaches them with his notebook in his hand. </p><p>“Good morning, Lieutenant General Reyes, Mr. Strand,” he greets before taking in TKʼs disheveled state. “Good morning, TK. Have you spent the night here?” </p><p>“Is it that obvious?” he half-whines. Heʼs known Lester Martinson for a while now — he was the doctor who treated both Michelle and himself during their stints at the hospital the year before. He was also the doctor who brought Judd back after the original 126 had had their fatal accident. </p><p>“The Ryders gave him a hard time about it as well,” his father pipes in. TK glares at him but it's to no avail — Owen Strand doesn’t let his sonʼs tantrums affect him after so many years. </p><p>“I bet,” Dr. Martinson replies softly. </p><p>“Could we cut down the pleasantries, please?” Alicia complains. “I need to know when I will have my baby back.” </p><p>TK rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything. He understands now why Carlos had been postponing introducing him to his mother for months — he doesn’t doubt that Alicia is a good person, but she’s grilling on his nerves with her goal-oriented no-nonsense personality. </p><p>“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about,” Dr. Martinson tells them, motioning to a few seats scattered through the corridor. He waits until TK is seated, holding back a sigh when Alicia colorfully refuses to sit down. “It’s been several days since Carlosʼ last surgery. The swelling in his brain is practically nonexistent now. There is no reason for him not to breathe on his own, or for him not to wake up.”</p><p>TK looks up at the doctor with a blank stare. He doesn’t think he understands what's being said. </p><p>“What do you mean, Lester?” Owen asks when it’s evident that neither TK nor Alicia will say anything. </p><p>“This happens sometimes,” the doctor explains. “Sometimes patients who have undergone severe trauma fall into a state of coma and don't seem to wake up from it.” </p><p>TK gasps, one hand up to his mouth. He feels bile rising in his throat, but he wills it back down — he canʼt be sick in the middle of the hospital. </p><p>“Iʼm sorry,” Dr. Martinson says in a soft voice, his eyes gleaming in the poorly lit corridor. “There’s no reason for Carlos not to be awake by now. Given the circumstances, Iʼm afraid he’s entered an irreversible coma.”</p><p>“What does that mean?” Alicia echoes Owenʼs words from before with a higher pitch to her voice. “What’s happening to my baby?” </p><p>TK feels the tears finally falling freely down his cheeks, the iron taste of bile in the back of his mouth, and it takes him all he has in himself not to bolt out of this situation. </p><p>“I’m so sorry, Lieutenant General Reyes. We don't know when Carlos will wake up, or if he ever will.”</p>
<hr/><p>The sharp pain is becoming a sure sign that he’s being dragged from the darkness once again. Carlos would like to talk to whoever’s in charge so maybe this could stop happening — there has to be a way to revisit all his past mistakes and affronts without going through excruciating grief every single time. So maybe this isn't Godʼs work, if it hurts so much. Maybe this is the Devilʼs work. </p><p>Maybe this is his personal hell. </p><p>Maybe he has to live through his past for eternity so he can atone for every sin heʼs ever committed. </p><p>Carlos can hear his motherʼs voice above the white noise of his pain. He thinks heʼs listening to her praying, but the truth is that this is maybe a hallucination — all the more reason to believe that he might be in the limbo he was told about while he was growing up. Lost in the middle of nowhere, a place where time doesn’t exist and everything is peppered down with the blackness of despair. </p><p>“You have put him through two different surgeries, and you still don't know what's wrong with him?” his mother is saying. “What kind of doctors are you?” </p><p>Carlos wants to retaliate, to yell at them to pay him attention and then they will find out heʼs awake. But he finds he canʼt speak. Not a single word makes it past his lips, and as much as he wants to scream, he has the feeling that no one is listening. </p><p>He can’t hear TKʼs voice. There’s only his mother’s, and that grills his nerves. He needs his boyfriend, he needs to tell him that it wasn't anyoneʼs fault — that it certainly wasn't TK’s. But he can’t find his voice, and he’s already feeling the pull of his memories — it’s happened enough times already that he can now tell when they’re coming.</p><p>Another side effect of whatever it is that’s happening to him is that he can recognize the memory soon enough to brace himself for what’s coming.</p><p>Carlos sees himself at fifteen, the night before his mother’s newest deployment starts after being home for just a couple of months. He remembers living with her for those full eight weeks and feeling like he was living with a stranger — he’s been living with the Blake family across the street for as long as his mother has been away. With Amalia joining the Marines seven years before, Carlos has been left alone for more time than he’s spent with his actual, blood-related family. The Blakes have become his second family — his <i>chosen</i> family — even though he’s not sure who chose who in the beginning. It’s not that it matters anymore; he’s just a few hours away from going back to the place he calls home, he just needs to power through this awkward dinner together and when he wakes up in the morning to go to high school his mother will be gone.</p><p>Carlos remembers what happened that night, and he’s starting to get mad at his psyche — at <i>whoever</i> or <i>whatever</i> that’s making him experience this — because this is a memory he doesn’t want to revisit. He’s managed to bury it deep down, stacking it in a box hidden in the darkest corner of his soul. He hasn’t even talked to TK about this, even if his boyfriend knows the gist of it.</p><p>It’s never nice to remember the night that his mother started ghosting him on purpose.</p><p>“Hey, mom,” he sees his younger self perking up across the table where he’s eating the pizza his mother has ordered for them — a treat since she’s sprung it on him that she’s leaving for eighteen months with a high chance of reenlisting for another eighteen more. He sees his mother looking up from her pepperoni slice. “I have something to tell you.”</p><p>“Of course, Carlos,” Alicia says, leaving the pizza on her plate and pulcrily wiping her hands on a paper towel. “You know you can tell me anything.”</p><p>The Carlos in the memory smiles nervously. “I—I don’t know how you’re going to take this.”</p><p>“So long as it isn’t you deciding not to join the Marines, I think we’ll be good,” she teases, and Carlos groans inwardly at the way his younger self shrinks back in his seat. “What is it, Carlos?”</p><p>“I, uh,” he stammers. Carlos can tell the moment when his younger self decides that he’s going to tell his truth, come hell or high water — and how he would love to hug him when the whole apocalypse dawns on him. “I’m gay, Mom. And before you say anything, just know that I’m—” he rushes to say but he stops when his mother lifts one hand to silence him.</p><p>Alicia blinks at him, not saying anything for the longest time, until she sighs. “That’s not—that’s not ideal,” she finally says. “But I think we could work on disguising your, uh, condition <i>before</i> you join the Marines so when the time comes, it’s just second nature to you.”</p><p>“What?” he replies, his brown eyes widening in surprise that quickly turns to anger. “Why do you want me to lie? This is who I am!”</p><p>“Because people like you don’t survive in the Marines! I’m just trying to protect you!”</p><p>“Why do you keep saying that?” he asks. He tries to calm himself by spreading his fingers on his thighs, tapping them on the fleece of the sweatpants he’s wearing as he counts to ten. Once he manages to successfully count up to that and backwards, he speaks again under the scrutiny of his mother’s inquisitive gaze. “Why do you think I’m joining the Marines, Mom?”</p><p>“I don’t care which branch of the military you join,” she tells him. “To be honest, I’d be a bit disappointed if you chose to join the Air Force, you know what we all feel about them. But if that’s what you decide to do, then I’ll support you. But,” she inhales deeply, as if bracing herself for what she's going to say, she keeps on. “But the branch doesn’t matter. DADT is still full force, Carlos. I’m really touched that you told me, but you can’t tell anyone else. It could get you court martialed. Now I will have to lie anytime someone asks me about it.”</p><p>“Why would anyone ask you about your son’s sexuality?” He’s confused, Carlos remembers, because back then he didn’t understand why his mother was being so pressing with the issue — knowing what comes next doesn’t make the blow hurt less, though. “It’s not like I’m going to be military, Mom. I’m going to join the Police Department.”</p><p>“Why wouldn’t you join the Marines, Carlos?” his mother questions. It’s evident that she’s trying her best to keep her temper in line.</p><p>“Because I don’t want to be away from the people I love, from my <i>family</i>! The military always keeps people apart from each other!”</p><p>“Your family is military. Your sister and I, we’re both Marines. And after this deployment I’ll be stateside once again, I promise. I won’t reenlist for a second deployment. I’ll come home.”</p><p>“No, you won’t! And I don’t want to be away from my friends. I’m not joining the Marines, or any other military branch. I’ve already decided. I’m not doing it!”</p><p>Alicia shakes her head before pushing herself off the table with more force than needed, the pizza slices sliding to the floor as the table tips over. “I don’t think you’re going to do so, son. You’re enlisting as soon as you turn eighteen, just like your father, and your sister, and me myself did. That’s what we’ve always talked about, and I’m making sure you enlist properly.”</p><p>“You can’t force me!” he screeches. “Once I’m eighteen you won’t have any power over me!”</p><p>“But I have it now,” she reminds him. “And you’re going to do as I say, because you will have changed your mind in three years and by that time any damage you may have caused to your reputation now will be impossible to undo.”</p><p>His younger self bites his lips as he tries to keep the tears at bay. It’s been ingrained in his mind, ever since he was a little kid, that boys don’t cry, but right now he feels like he could cry a whole ocean.</p><p>“Why are you being so insensitive, Mom?” he whispers, even though he wants to shout it. “I’m still me. I don’t want to hide who I am, and I definitely don’t want to be a Marine, but I’m still <i>me</i>.”</p><p>“Of course you’re still you, Carlos,” Alicia tells him, but there’s something in her voice that irks Carlos even when he knows what she’s saying next. “But you need to understand what’s at stake and how to protect yourself and your family from it.”</p><p>“Protect myself?” Carlos scoffs. “What are you talking about? Being gay doesn’t mean being dangerous!” He’s flailing around the room now, almost crushing his toes against the coffee table.</p><p>“But it is dangerous for you, and for your sister and for me, if anyone knows!” Alicia tries to make him understand. “The Marines could—”</p><p>“The Marines won’t do anything because they won’t know. Because I’m not joining! I’m going to be a cop, just like Thom!”</p><p>At some point, he’s paced toward the stairs that lead to his room, and before he knows what he’s doing he’s climbing them.</p><p>“Like Thom? You mean Thomas Blake?” Alicia questions, following him upstairs. “It’s nice that you look up to him, but your father should be your hero, Carlos, not some—”</p><p>“Stop it!” Carlos finally snaps. He’s reached his door; he opens the door and steps inside, fast enough to catch his bag and step outside in record time. “My father died when I was eight, and ever since I’ve been alone!”</p><p>“You know that’s not—”</p><p>“Don’t you dare!” He avoids colliding against her in his rush to go downstairs. “You made sure Amalia joined the Marines right after, and you went away so quickly that I couldn’t even say goodbye to you! You were away for a year and a half, and you’ve always been traveling and working so much ever since! You left me with the Blakes and expected not to be attached to <i>them</i>?” He grabs the knob and opens the door with more force than he was planning on.</p><p>“Carlos Reyes, where are you going?” Alicia tries to use his authoritarian voice, but Carlos has reached his limit. He doesn’t even worry about making a scene in the middle of the street as he crosses to the house in front of his.</p><p>“I’m going back <i>home</i>, Mom,” he calls over his shoulder, not even stopping to catch his breath. “I didn’t think you’d care, since you’re leaving again in the morning.”</p><p>He fishes for the keys he’s got since he turned twelve, and opens the front door to the Blake's household without even bidding farewell to his mother. He doesn’t turn around, for fear he’d see Alicia Reyes standing in the middle of the street looking as lost as he’s feeling. He doesn’t think he could survive watching his mother crumble. Somehow he knows she won’t even budge a little.</p><p>The fact that she doesn’t follow him is enough to convince him.</p><p>The door closes behind him, and he presses his back against it as he allows the duffel bag to slide to the floor. There are noises all around — the television on with some football match, Michelle’s HiFi system blasting some country song, Iris’ voice over the phone, and the rattling of pans in the kitchen. Carlos leaves his bag and heads to the only place where he feels safe.</p><p>Theresa is making some meatballs for the spaghetti that’s halfway through its <i>al dente</i> point when he sets foot in the kitchen. She spares a glance at him but doesn’t say a word; she simply motions for him to join her. Carlos grabs an apron from the hanger behind the door and walks next to her as he ties a knot at his back.</p><p>“Home soon, aren’t we?” she asks softly, holding out a spatula. Carlos takes it. he doesn’t reply, and she doesn’t press on.</p><p>Both keep cooking until Carlos feels he can speak again without breaking down.</p><p>“Mrs. Blake, I’ve had a horrible argument with mom,” he begins.</p><p>“What have I told you about that? It’s Theresa for you, sweetie. Don’t make me feel like an old lady you don’t know.”</p><p>“Uh, right, Theresa,” he stutters.</p><p>“You know you can tell me anything, honey, but only if you’re ready to do so. Those are the only rules here,” she gently reminds him. He watches as she drops a few more grains of salt on top of the pasta. “Just remember, you’re allowed to breathe.”</p><p>“I told her something, and now she’s mad at me and disappointed, and I’m mad at her and definitely disappointed and—”</p><p>“Breathe, remember?” Theresa Blake leaves her cooking for an instant to look over to where Carlos is standing, not stirring the sauce any longer. “Whatever it is, it can probably be solved. Everything has a solution.”</p><p>“Not this one.”</p><p>“Maybe it doesn’t, maybe it does,” Theresa tells him. “But mourning over it won’t solve the problem.”</p><p>“She wants me to join the Marines,” he blurts out. “And I don’t want to! I want to be a police officer! Okay? I don’t care about the military, I don’t want to join! I don’t want the military to take me away!”</p><p>“I have an inkling that it’s about more than just that, Lito,” Theresa says, using the nickname that he doesn’t like at all because it’s not his name, but it sounds so <i>loving</i> when they pronounce it. “I’m sure you didn’t just bolt out of your house on your last night with your mom in a long time because of that petty fight. Your mom will understand, or you could change your mind.”</p><p>“But she kept talking about DADT and hiding who I am and—” he trails off when he realizes his mistake. Telling his mother had been the first step he’s ever taken in revealing his sexuality, but he hadn’t planned on coming out to his other family right away. He claps a hand over his mouth.</p><p>“Hiding who you are?” Theresa smiles sweetly at him. “Why would you? You’re perfect as you are, Carlos.”</p><p>“Uh, you know, because I, ah, I—” he gulps. “Theresa, I’m gay.”</p><p>She chuckles, shaking her head. He can see her fingers deftly kneading some of the minced meat into a perfect ball. “As I was saying, no need to hide who you are. Perfect,” she mumbles, and Carlos doesn’t know whether she’s talking about the meat or about him.</p><p>They keep working in silence for a bit longer, and when the dinner is ready Theresa saunters over to where he is and hugs him tight — or as tight as someone her size could ever hug someone with Carlos’ breadth. He allows himself to sink into the embrace, trembling slightly as she keeps him close to her chest, holding him through his pain until he realizes he has no more tears to cry. Then she steps away, grabs the pan where the pasta and the meatball are ready to be eaten, and announces out loud, “Dinner’s ready, family! Set up the table for five! Carlos has come home early!”</p><p>As the memory dissolves, escaping him as though it was sand sliding through his fingers, Carlos remembers in his bones that it was the first time he felt free in a long time. That night was the first night he felt he belonged somewhere — he belonged to <i>someone</i>. He had a family.</p><p>He sinks back into darkness with the knowledge that, somewhere, his chosen family and his found family are waiting for him to wake up, so maybe all he has to do is fight harder to cross that line between this endless forever and the short-lived happiness that being awake has always given him.</p>
<hr/><p>The need to down a whiskey on the rocks is becoming unstoppable the more TK thinks about Dr. Martinson’s words, echoing in his head like a mantra. </p><p><i>We don’t know when Carlos will wake up</i>.</p><p><i>We don’t know</i>.</p><p>TK is sure he’s losing his mind. He doesn’t know how long he remains seated in that uncomfortable chair in that hospital corridor, but he’s aware that it must have been long enough for Alicia to huff her way into Carlos’ room and for his own father to take a seat beside him and accompany him in a soothing silence. Alicia has skidded back to the room, her heels skipping every two steps as she runs to her son’s side. On her wake, TK is pretty sure that she was mumbling something about incompetent doctors and wanting to ask for a second opinion, and a few strings of words that clearly reached his ears, as though she had wanted him to listen to them — how she was going to right all the wrongs of her sonʼs life, including the astray ways he's been living, including cutting access to his current situation from anyone who isn’t family. </p><p>He isn’t <i>family</i>, and Alicia knows it. He has the feeling that the world that just some days ago exploded around him is now turning to ashes so quickly that TK canʼt keep up with all the changes. He isn’t sure he wants to keep up — not if it means that Carlos isn’t close to him, not if it means that he has to go on without Carlos. </p><p>It isn’t a decision anyone but them should make, and yet here they are — Alicia is officially the closest family member available, because TK isn’t Carlosʼ next of kin. It doesn’t matter anymore, because Alicia doesn’t like him and she will do everything in her power to keep him away from her little, sweet baby that she’s sure TK had corrupted with his perverse ways. </p><p>TK <i>knows</i> he’s not going to remain sane any longer without Carlos by his side. He doesn’t believe he <i>wants</i> to try, and now he’s been told that he will be by himself.</p><p>He wants to scream, but he doesn’t find a thread of voice to even whisper how much he’s hurting.</p><p>“What do you say, we go to the cafeteria and have something warm?” his father suggests. His arm is around TK’s shoulder, fingers squeezing that spot where he has a mole that Carlos used to kiss on his way down TK’s body.</p><p>He can’t do this. Not now. Probably not <i>ever</i>.</p><p>“I think I need to be alone, Dad,” he whispers, hating how his voice seems to break with every syllable he speaks.</p><p>“TK, I don’t think that’s advisable right now.”</p><p>“I don’t care!” he finally snaps, right in the middle of the corridor. He can see how his bellowed words have startled some nurses who were doing the morning rounds, he notices the glares he’s getting from across the hall when Alicia Reyes’ head shoots outside of Carlos’ room door. There’s a look of disapproval in her Brown eyes, so eerily similar to Carlosʼ that they make TK dream of a world where Alicia doesn’t hate him. He shakes his head to clear it, but it doesn’t help. “I just want to be left alone, Dad.”</p><p>“TK—”</p><p>“Don’t, Dad,” TK cuts him. He stands up on his feet, feeling them wobbly underneath the weight not only of his own body but also underneath the weight of all the sins he’s committed. </p><p>“At least stay here for a while longer, please.”</p><p>“I can’t!” he exclaims again. “Why can’t you see that I need to be alone? The love of my <i>fucking</i> life is lying on a bed in a hospital room after being brutally assaulted in his own house, and not even the doctors think he’s going to make it!”</p><p>TK’s eyes widen when the words he’s just spoken kick into his mind. His father stands up along with him, but he ghosts away from his touch when Owen tries to reach out to him. TK lifts his hands and racks them through his short hair, pulling at it hard.</p><p>“Son.” There’s a tinge of sadness in Owen’s voice, laced with the kind of deference that TK has been hearing in his father’s voice ever since he found out about his first overdose.</p><p>“I—I’m sorry, Dad,” he whispers, taking a step back and colliding into the furthest wall. “I didn’t mean—I need to get out of here.”</p><p>He stumbles through the corridor, rushing past Carlos’ room without even sparing a second glance inside. He can feel Alicia’s eyes on him, disapproving in a way that burns holes in the back of his skull. Maybe some other day — maybe in some other <i>life</i> — he would have stopped and despaired about what a bad impression he’s making on Carlos’ mom, but he can’t bring himself to care anymore. Not when he’s been given the worst of news.</p><p>Not when he can’t even tell Carlos how sorry he is that the last words they exchanged were full of hatred and resentment.</p><p>Before he’s aware of what he’s doing, he has his phone in his hand and he’s tapping furiously on the Uber app. He is faintly aware of the scene he must be making outside of the hospital, looking completely disheveled and broken, but he hopes whoever looks at him for longer than three seconds would only see someone who's received very bad news — given the place heʼs just escaped as though chased by the devil himself, TK thinks he could play the part. </p><p>It's nothing he isn’t feeling, anyway. </p><p>He slides into the car once it pulls over close to him, barking directions to the driver who takes them all in stride without replying. TK closes his eyes when the car starts again, not ready to look to the hospital entrance in case he sees his father standing there. He doesn’t feel ready to admit the defeat Lester Martinson has announced. </p><p>If his father had any say in the matter, TK is sure heʼd tell him that by running away TK is already giving into this disaster. </p><p>If Carlos were awake, they could laugh at this moment together. But Carlos isn’t awake — it looks like Carlos will be asleep forever, or at least for as long as Alicia deems necessary. </p><p>TK doesn’t want to fool himself. He’s done enough of that before in his life, and it all set him up for failing. He knows that, when doctors certify the state of a patient, they are sure of their diagnosis. He also knows, deep down, that he isn’t anything to Carlos, officially — they might be boyfriends, they might be living together half of their time, but there’s no official paper that links them. He has no power of decision over Carlosʼ medical stuff — that's all Aliciaʼs. And it's evident that she doesn’t like TK; whether or not it's because she doesn’t like him for her son or she doesn’t accept that her son is dating another <i>man</i>, TK doesn’t think heʼll ever know. Heʼs not sure he cares, anyway. </p><p>Being liked by Alicia isn’t going to bring Carlos back to him. </p><p>The car comes to a halt outside of Carlosʼ building, taking TK off his reverie. He thanks the driver, apologizing for his manners from before and for not having been a great passenger, and gets out before he can talk himself out of it. He had to stick to the decision heʼs made on a whim. He owes Carlos a sweet epilogue, even if it's going to be one-sided. He fishes in his front pocket and produces a key that gleams under the light of the dying sun. TK is aware that the day has slipped past him, between waking up by Carlosʼ side and being given the worst of news, but he canʼt bring himself to care. </p><p>What’s a day anymore, if he isn’t going to share the time with Carlos? </p><p>TK walks to the building with unsure steps. Carlosʼ apartment is on the ground floor, and it has direct access from the street. The police believe that it was the reason that attracted the assailants in the first place, because it was easy to break into. The police tap is no longer in place, so TK knows he isn’t breaking any laws by entering an apartment he used to call <i>his</i>. </p><p>It feels weird to be standing in the middle of the living room that once witnessed him storming out in a fury that could only rival a thousand suns, all by himself now without the aiding wheels of Carlosʼ warmth to engulf him and guide him through the process of being alone. TK shakes his head to clear it, looking around, searching for something. He isn’t sure heʼs ready to face the real reason heʼs come back here. </p><p>For a week and a half, TK has only left the hospital when his father has manhandled him outside, forcing him to a shower and some food and some real sleep in the house he rented when they both moved into Austin. TK hadn't set foot in this apartment after that fight, and he faintly realizes that his father was right — he shouldn’t be here alone. Or at all. </p><p>Shaky fingers trace the leather of the couch, drawing patterns on the seams. He inhales, catching a faint gist of Carlosʼ cologne on the spot where the bottle had collided against the rug. His lips start to tremble, and it's all he has in him not to begin crying right in this moment, losing himself in the memory of all the times heʼs felt Carlos against his skin, marking his soul with his gentleness and his body with his teeth. </p><p>His phone buzzes in his pockets, but he chooses to ignore it. It’s probably his father trying to check in on him. TK doesn’t want anyone to interrupt this moment. He makes a quick movement to the master bedroom, where he stops dead in his tracks at the sight of the unmade bed, exactly the way they had left it before TK broke both their hearts. It sends a jolt of grief through his soul, and he has to swallow the sob that threatens to get out of his throat. </p><p>The closet door is open, some of Carlosʼ shirts peeking out shyly. TK finds himself walking to it, wanting to touch the fabric in a futile attempt to feel his boyfriend closer when heʼs the furthest they could be from one another. Unable to keep his crying inside any longer, TK falls down on his knees at the threshold of the wardrobe, his world crumbling around him as he wails. He trembles like a leaf as he drags himself across the floor, searching for the wall to rest his back on it. When he manages to sit, a heap of tears and strife, his left elbow hits something inside the closet. </p><p>His hand roams over the surface, pulling at it until he discovers a brown box, lids open. TK knows he shouldn’t be sneaking through Carlosʼ things, but he canʼt help it — once Alicia starts commandeering Carlosʼ life, TK won't even have the crumbs of a relationship that was doomed from the beginning. </p><p>He browses through a couple of worn shirts and a pair of destroyed sneakers that he distinctly remembers Buttercup chewing through — the letter jacket Carlos earned during freshman year at high school, an APD t-shirt with their old logo design on the front, Nike running shoes TK’s been teasing Carlos about for weeks after he bought them on impulse. Carlos had never used them because they weren’t the perfect fir for his feet. </p><p>TK realizes that this must be a box of things Carlos should have thrown away but he couldn’t — a sort of memory capsule. TK brings one of the shirts out and smells it, but his fingers graze some smooth fabric and his curiosity gets the best of him. </p><p>He grasps whatever it is and pulls it out of the box, spreading it in front of his eyes against the dim light of the room seeping into the closet. He recognizes the article of clothing — how couldn’t he — and it's the last straw. </p><p>It's his yellow hoodie, the one he wore the day he came clean to his team after the solar flares. He had thought he’d lost it somewhere when he couldn’t find it among his things one night, and had mourned the loss as though it had been a brother. It was his favorite hoodie, and the last time he’d seen it had been before spending one night at Carlosʼ, a few months back. Carlos, who had been cheeky enough to have denied ever seeing it again. Carlos, who had stored it away in a memory capsule along with his favorite sneakers and the tie his sister Amalia had given him before wheeling away. </p><p>Carlos had wanted to have TKʼs hoodie between his most treasured possessions, and the fact that he stole it doesn’t tame the pain TK feels. </p><p>He didn’t think he could hurt more, deeper, but the sight of his hoodie in a box at Carlosʼ closet proves him wrong. There’s a dagger slicing through his skin, breaking him into a million of tiny pieces that he feels like he will never be able to retrieve as they float away from him in the galaxy of despair heʼs lost himself into. </p><p>He lets out an inhuman wail as he clings to the hoodie, as though the fabric is a lifeline in an ocean of tears where he is drowning.</p>
<hr/><p>The noises around him don’t slow down for what feels like an eternity but it’s more probably just a few days. Carlos would want them scattered all over the place instead of squandered in murmurs about how he’s most probably not going to make it on his own.</p><p>He’s become an expert at recognizing voices in the midst of obscurity his world has become. He’s attached to TK’s — he would listen to his boyfriend reciting the phone book — and he swears he’s heard Michelle’s at some point, along with the rest of the 126 and his own coworkers, but those voices have become scarce with time, overlapped by his mother’s and the doctors’, and occasionally Kapinski’s.</p><p>Carlos always pays attention to Kapinkski’s words, because he’s the messenger of news from the outside world. Carlos needs to know how everyone’s doing, and as much as he relishes TK’s way of retelling the events of the day, it’s becoming uneventful as he uses up his days off to spend his nights beside him. Carlos would love for TK to be around the whole day, but he was awake the moment Alicia Reyes explicitly forbade anyone without her express permission to enter the room when she was around — leaving TK to sneak in during the nights and disappear before official visiting hours.</p><p>He’s been trying to make them understand that he’s aware of his surroundings, but he’s only managed to reach different peaks in the beeping of machines, causing a scene and making TK freak out when he thought Carlos was dying instead of trying to open his eyes. So Carlos needs to keep working, but it’s difficult when he doesn’t know how much longer he has before darkness claims him for good. It keeps getting harder and harder within each passing second — he needs to defeat the poison inside of him. </p><p>Right now, Carlos is listening to his mother ordering the nurses around. He’s not sure how much longer she’s going to be around — she’s usually a really busy woman, and ever since she got that promotion that sent her stateside and located in Washington, Carlos has seen even less of her than before. Not that he’s complaining. But he’s getting bored with her superiority when he hears Kapinski greeting some nurses and entering the room.</p><p>“Lieutenant General,” he says. Carlos can almost see him mock bowing at her. “I bring good news.”</p><p>“Officer Kapinski,” she greets him; Carlos feels the disdain with which she speaks. She’s never liked the Police Corps, going to the extent of not speaking to her own son for months after he disclosed his sexuality and his desire not to follow her footsteps in one night. “I’m not sure you could bring any good news regarding the investigation for this assault, but it’s worth a try.”</p><p>“I will ignore your attempt at diminishing our efforts at solving this case,” he mutters. He clears his throat and speaks again, louder. “We have found and arrested the culprits of this attack. We have sent them to jail until the judge deems it necessary to call them to trial, and they have already snitched on half of their gang. We’re on the right path to end this insanity.”</p><p>“Evidently you weren’t motivated enough to do so when my son wasn’t on the edge of dying,” Alicia sneers. “I sincerely hope you’re not fishing for a compliment here for just doing your job, a job that’s been fulfilled late, may I add.”</p><p>Kapinski coughs slightly. “I wouldn’t even <i>think</i> of it, Alicia. I don’t think my conscience would allow me to accept a compliment from someone who thought it was correct to leave her vulnerable, teenage son thinking that he wasn’t enough because he wanted a life outside your parameters.”</p><p>“Don’t you dare—”</p><p>“Enough!” Kapinski loses it right then, Carlos can tell by the way his voice pitches an octave higher than usual. “It wasn’t me who left this kid alone and lost, but it was <i>me</i>, and Thom, and Theresa, and Iris and Michelle, who picked up the pieces and took him in. And it’s been the whole precinct and the new 126 helping us lately. It’s not on you to decide whether or not TK Strand can enter this room. You can’t ban his <i>boyfriend</i> from being with him just because you don’t like that your son likes other <i>men</i>. Hell, even Amalia has been regularly checking on Carlos behind your back because she’s as scared of you as the rest of them!”</p><p>Carlos hears his mother spluttering, but Kapinski isn’t finished yet. “But I’m not afraid of you. You don’t have that power over me. I wanted to believe that you were redeemable, but you keep just fucking up with every decision you make by yourself, instead of listening to the people who actually know Carlos. You can claim you’re his mother, but bringing him to this world doesn’t automatically make you an expert on him, not after so many years.”</p><p>Carlos can hear Kapinski turning around, the rustle of his trousers deafening as he drags his regulation shoes around. Then, his voice speaks again, this time quieter, “I found this letter among the debris in Carlos’ apartment. I didn’t want to give it to you, because it’s not <i>yours</i>, but I also wanted to avoid the maze of legal shit you’d have thrown at us if I’d given it to TK instead of you, first. I hope you do the right thing, just this once.”</p><p>With that, Carlos hears Kapinski leaving, the door closing behind him. Then it’s just white noise as his mother unfolds what sounds like paper, and the occasional bitten-back sob as his mother reads whatever it is that Kapinski gave her.</p><p>“Oh, Carlos,” she whimpers, an indefinite amount of time later, grabbing his hand. He wishes he could squeeze her hand back, to let her know that he’s here. “I’m so sorry. I never knew—I never did because I never wanted to know you. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry, and now we’re running out of time and I—”</p><p>She chokes on her own tears, coughing loudly as she keeps mumbling about how mistaken she’s been. Carlos sighs in his darkness.</p><p>He has purpose now, but strangely enough he can’t control how or when the memories assault him, so when the darkness gets lit up once again with the whirlwind of colors that is the house where he grew up, Carlos knows he can’t fight it. He can only hope that it’s a way to understand how to overcome the weight that’s got placed on top of his lungs, making it impossible to breathe.</p><p>When the dizziness recedes, he’s staring down at a funeral.</p><p>Of course he remembers the moment, although he wishes this particular memory could be wiped out of him. He remembers the months prior to it, the pain they all went through, the long nights and the desperation. He remembers holding Iris in his arms and promising her that everything would end up being fine, while her father was slowly dying in a palliative care hospital downtown.</p><p>Rain is pouring down on them, like it does in the movies, as several police officers from the precinct carry the coffin to the exact spot where Thomas Blake is going to be buried. There are salutes and the national anthem is also sung at some point. The memories of this moment are as blurry in Carlos’ mind as the image in front of him. He remembers being fresh out of the Police Academy, applying to be part of the same precinct where Thom had spent most of his life, when he sat them all around the dining table and told them that he was dying. He didn’t sugarcoat it — it wasn’t his way of doing things, he explained, and he wasn’t about to change his way of living now that he was almost done. He told them that the doctors had caught his pancreas cancer in terminal stages, so there was nothing they could do.</p><p>But, Thom had told them, what they all should do was enjoy life to the fullest while they could, because that’s what he was planning to do.</p><p>And he did, up until the very end — until he was bound to a bed with no strength whatsoever to get up. And Carlos had followed his example, long after he’d passed away.</p><p>That’s why Carlos doesn’t like this memory; it isn’t a summary of how Thom had taught them how to live. It’s a sad reminder of what they all lost.</p><p>He stares down at himself, barely a few weeks out of the Academy that had taken him over thirty weeks to complete, completely broken in front of the tomb that’s now, and forever, Thom’s home. He’s starting at the same precinct Thom worked at, with Thom’s old partner Dan Kapinski, but he doesn’t think he has the guts to go back to work as a police officer when the inspiration he’s always had is simply <i>gone</i>.</p><p>Kapinski approaches him when everyone else is gone, including the Blake girls who have told him to come back home whenever he’s ready.</p><p>“Carlos,” Kapinski greets him, clapping his hand on his shoulder beneath the pouring skies. “How’re you holding up?”</p><p>“I wish I could say that I’m good, but I’m not. Have to be, for the girls.”</p><p>“You’ve always been the strong one, Reyes,” Kapinski tells him in a confident voice. “Even when you were barely a child.”</p><p>“What?”</p><p>Kapinski smiles at him when Carlos turns around, the rain blinding him and mixing up with his own tears. “I bet you don’t remember the first time we met, Reyes. You were about six, I think,” Kapinski chuckles. “Your father was coming back home and your mother had gone to pick him up at the airport. Amalia was at her friend’s house doing homework.”</p><p>Carlos snickers at that. They both know that Amalia hadn’t been doing homework that night — or any other, for that matter — during her junior year at high school.</p><p>“Okay, she was doing whatever she’d been doing back then,” Kapinski concedes. “You were alone at home, and Thom and I, we were patrolling the streets that night and Thom had wanted to go greet his girls. So I was in the car when you stepped outside of your house and allowed the door to close behind you. When you realized you didn’t have the keys, you started to cry <i>really</i> loud.”</p><p>Carlos remembers that moment as well. He’d been so scared, being outside when mom had told him  not to, and having forgotten his keys inside. He had no way of entering back. His mother would kill him, he knew that. And then, magically, a police officer he’d seen several times around the neighborhood showed up in front of him and comforted him, talking to him until Officer Blake from the house across the street — the man his father had been friends with in high school — managed to produce a new set of keys and opened the front door for him. Carlos remembers hearing him muttering something about careless parents who left a six-year-old alone in their house, but he can’t be sure. It’s been a minute.</p><p>“I still was Thom’s rookie then,” Kapinski confesses. “He’d taught me a lot of things, but the one I’m most proud of learning is compassion. He never judged. He was always accepting. And I’d been a complete jerk not having learned that from him.”</p><p>“That was Thom,” Carlos agrees, wiping at his eyes furiously. Then, it dawns on him. “Wait, I didn’t know you’d been Thom’s rookie!”</p><p>“Yeah,” Kapinksi laughs. “And now you’re going to be mine. A man has got to keep his promises, right? I gave my word to Thom that I’d always take care of you and the girls. I’m not planning on bailing out just yet.”</p><p>The memory fades away just like the rest have before, and Carlos is left alone once again in his darkness. He’s becoming used to this, but this time it’s a little bit different. There’s a light by the far end of the place where he’s staying, casting some lightning — making Carlos realize he’s been in a room the whole time. He still hears the noises from the world he’s almost left behind — the machines, the nurses, the people, <i>TK</i> — but he’s also strangely attracted to the light by the far end of the room. It’s like it’s calling him, and he feels compelled to follow it.</p><p>But somehow, TK’s voice pins him to the ground, a wet sound begging him to come back, to wake up. And Carlos has never been good at denying TK anything. If only he could muster up the strength — if only he could squeeze back the fingers that tether him to a world he never wanted to leave.</p><p>Then he remembers Kapinski’s words, and he finds out that it’s not about strength. He’s always been strong. It’s about willingness. It’s about the way he looks at his problems. It’s about how he chooses to face the darkness and interact with it.</p><p>It’s about never giving up.</p><p>With a groan, Carlos lunges forward, away from the light, and closes his hand around the fingers that he’s feeling on top of his skin, finally, finally squeezing them back.</p>
<hr/><p>He loses track of time once again. He feels like heʼs fallen asleep on the floor ages ago, but when he opens his eyes and checks his phone — ignoring the three missed calls from his father and the over a hundred messages in the group chat — he realizes it's only been seven hours since he last looked at his screen. Although seven hours can be a lot when he remembers the predicament heʼs in. </p><p>For a moment heʼs forgotten the reason why he had slept on the floor in Carlosʼ closet. The stickiness on his cheeks, the trails of tears down his neck, the heaviness in his eyelids — they're all telltales of his inner turmoil. </p><p>His boyfriend is in a coma because he's been crazy enough to pick up a fight when he shouldn’t have. TK should have never doubted Carlos — after what he’s found out — but he has never been known for his adequacy. He thought Alex had wanted to marry him when all Alex had wanted was to screw his spinning instructor. It ended up with him overdosing. </p><p>He thought Carlos had been cheating on him — there were signals everywhere — when all Carlos had wanted was to spend the rest of his life with TK. He even had a ring that TK isn’t sure where it has ended up. </p><p>That night didn't have the happy ending he would have wanted it to have, but this time it wasn't him on a gurney. This time it was Carlos but it didn't mean that TKʼs heart hadn't been riding in that ambulance with Carlos. </p><p>He picks his phone again and checks his messages. There’s one from Kapinski that catches his attention, and he opens it to read the words he’s been waiting to hear from the beginning — short of Lester reassuring him that Carlos would make it.</p>
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</div><p>Without letting go of the hoodie that he's been holding while sleeping — he canʼt believe he has been able to sleep a wink with Carlos in the hospital — he grabs his phone once again from where it landed a few moments before and dials his father. </p><p>“TK,” he picks up at the second ring. He sounds breathless. “Where are you? You’ve got me worried sick.” </p><p>“Iʼm at Carlosʼ apartment,” he tries to calm his father. “I must have fallen asleep. I didn't hear the phone, sorry about that. But I'll be at the hospital in no time, promise. I didn't mean to leave you alone with the Wicked Witch for so long.” </p><p>“I guessed as much,” his father says, the ghost of a smile present in his words. “Do you need me to go pick you up?” </p><p>TK shakes his head before realizing his father canʼt see him. “Nah, I'll catch a cab. Has there been any changes?” </p><p>He can hear his father hesitating, if the stutter that comes through the microphone is any sign. “Dad? Dad, please, you're scaring me.” He rushes up to his feet, scrambling to put the hoodie on with just one hand. “Dad?” </p><p>“There hasnʼt been any changes yet, TK,” his father finally says. “But it's only so much that Lester can do before Alicia legally takes over this situation. I worry that she won't let you have enough time to—” he trails off but TK hears the unspoken words. </p><p><i>Enough time to say goodbye</i>. </p><p>“I’ll be there in less than fifteen,” he promises before hanging up. </p><p>He isn’t sure how much time he has, given that he’s slept through several messages and calls in the last seven hours. He chastises himself while he rushes through Carlosʼ apartment without seeing much of anything, for having wasted so much time sleeping when he could have spent it talking to Carlos. He closes the door and locks it awkwardly before turning around and checking the street. There doesn’t seem to be much traffic, so he chances to book another Uber when he checks that the driver is only a few minutes away. </p><p>The ride back to the hospital is as silent as the ride to the building has been, but he feels more antsy than he did on the way over. He feels there’s more at stake now, with what his father has told him — he knew it was just wishful thinking to believe he had the endlessness of eternity with Carlos. </p><p>The hospital looms over him when he steps out of the car. He can see Mateo and Paul waiting outside, the youngest of them jumping slightly up and down while Paul tries to calm him. TK approaches them with the warmest smile he can muster right now. </p><p>“What are you doing outside?” he questions instead of greeting them. “Too many people inside?” </p><p>“More or less,” Paul replies, one hand still on Mateoʼs shoulder. “Cap told us you went away to have some rest.” </p><p>It comes out more like a question than a statement. TK nods before saying, “I needed to get away. Not that I am proud of leaving Carlos but—” </p><p>“No buts,” Mateo pipes in, his voice trembling a bit. “The dragon inside can exhaust anyone.” </p><p>“Did she kick you out?” </p><p>Paul shrugs while Mateo nods. TK feels his blood boiling in his veins — it's one thing that Alicia wants to keep him at an armʼs length from Carlos, because he can fight his own battles, but it's not right that she keeps Mateo outside. Carlos has been a good influence in Mateoʼs life, and TK would never dream of preventing him from visiting Carlos in any way. Least of them when apparently she’s planning to take over. </p><p>“Cap also said Carlos’ mother wants a second opinion. And something about a transfer?” Paul keeps talking, words growing more and more a whisper.</p><p>“Yeah,” TK says. “There’s nothing I can do about it, since it's her legal right to do so, but I’m not going down without a fight.” </p><p>“You can't imagine how much we’ve needed you to say so,” Mateo mutters, but TK hears him nonetheless. </p><p>He knows he's been out of it for the past ten days now, and he believes heʼs had good reason to do so, but he hasnʼt been the only one hurting — he canʼt begin to reckon how hard it's been on Mateo, to see his big brother figure helpless on a bed with no one fighting for him. </p><p>He nods and motions for them to follow him inside. </p><p>Before they reach the corridor where Carlosʼ room is, they can hear ruckus. TK rushes forward, suddenly worried that he's too late <i>again</i>, when he distinguishes Marjan’s voice above the noise. </p><p>“She can’t make me leave the hospital! I am Carlosʼ friend as well, you filthy—” </p><p>“Not here,” TK hears Grace telling Marjan, in what seems an attempt to calm her. If TK knows Marjan even a little bit, he knows it's only going to make her even more furious.</p><p>“Who does she think she is?” </p><p>“Alicia is Carlosʼ mother,” TK says instead of greeting them as he turns around the corner, followed by Paul and Mateo. He faces the two women, who are currently sitting outside the room. Marjan looks distressed, a few astray locks peeking out of her hijab. “She has all the rights, as much as it pains me to admit it.” </p><p>“You should be making the decisions,” Marjan counteracts, not even bothering hiding her disdain at the situation. “You are Carlosʼ family. Fuck, the 126 is more his family that this woman will ever be!” </p><p>“I won’t tell you you're wrong, 'cause you aren't,” Michelle interrupts them, approaching from the other side of the corridor along with Owen. “But she’s been like this for all of Carlosʼ life, ever since his father died. She doesn’t know what else to do.” </p><p>“I can't believe you're defending her,” Marjan spits out. “Or maybe I do. You're the only one she’s allowed inside since we’ve come here this morning.” </p><p>“She’s always believed my sister and Carlos would end up getting married,” Michelle explains. TK can't help but notice the wobble in her stance and the way his father shoots up a hand to steady her. “She simply tolerates me. Iʼm sorry for that.” </p><p>“You shouldn’t be,” TK tells her. “You can't control how Alicia reacts. That's only on her. Where is she, by the way? Is she still inside?” </p><p>“No,” Judd speaks up, showing up at the threshold of the door, now slightly ajar. “She said something about needing some fresh air, so we tried to seize up the moment. Marjan here was too worked up for that, though.” </p><p>TK smiles his first real smile in a long time, and squats down beside Marjan. “Why don't you get inside now? I'll make sure to keep Alicia from the room long enough for all of you to have a moment. If she’s planning to go through with her intentions, I don't think weʼll have another chance.” </p><p>“You’re far too calm,” his father tells him. TK shoots him a look that speaks volumes on how heʼs feeling — he hopes it conveys the pain heʼs undergoing at the mere thought of not being able to spend the rest of his life with Carlos, the guilt that grips him when he thinks of the fact that it's his fault, the fear that overcomes him at the fact that Alicia is legally able to cut them all from Carlosʼ recovery if there’s ever one. </p><p>“What the hell are you all doing out here?” they hear from the far end of the corridor, the high-pitch in Aliciaʼs voice grating on them. </p><p>TK turns around to face her, ready to fight her, but when he takes in her appearance he feels his heart breaking once again. </p><p>Alicia Reyes has lost the aura of surety she’s had around her ever since TK met her for the very first time. Instead, she looks disheveled, clothes otherwise pristine all rumpled as though she’s been stuck somewhere for the past days. She’s holding a piece of paper in her hand, wrinkled and red-stained. TK thinks fleetingly that the marks look suspiciously like blood. She comes closer to them; TK can see Marjan standing up out of the corner of his eye, ready for a fight. He lifts one hand to try and stop her, but he thinks maybe Grace beat him to it because Marjan remains silent when Grace speaks for them all.</p><p>“We were waiting for you to come back to let you know that we are about to say our goodbyes to Carlos, since you’re planning to get him transferred soon.”</p><p>“Is this true, Alicia?” TK says, forgetting all about the manners his parents ingrained in him as a child — he can’t <i>Lieutenant General Reyes</i> her right now. “Are you planning on—”</p><p>“I need to talk to you,” Alicia interrupts him, waving her hands in the air. TK can see a glimpse of the paper, flourishly handwritten in a way TK could never mistake. </p><p>She’s holding something that Carlos wrote.</p><p>And if the red marks are what TK thinks they are, it could possibly be the last thing Carlos has ever written before the assault — maybe forever, if the doctors are right.</p><p>“Alone,” Alicia insists when Owen takes a step forward to accompany his son. TK shakes his head, signaling for him to remain behind with the rest of the crew. When pushes come to shoves, he knows they’ll need their Captain. TK will always have his father, and he knows it. He needs to do this for himself — and if talking to Alicia on his own is what it takes for him to start earning his absolution, then so be it.</p><p>“Oh, and, uh,” Alicia stammers a bit as she keeps on. It’s the first time TK has seen her doubtful — not even when they were told that Carlos might not make it did she look anything but collected. “I bet he’d love for his friends to visit him, if he were awake. So why don’t you go inside and, ah, stay with him? I’m sure he’d appreciate it.”</p><p>TK can hear Marjan spluttering at his back, and Mateo rushing inside while almost shouting “I call dibs on the comfy chair!”, neither of them questioning the sudden change of heart in Alicia. He doesn’t plan on questioning it, for he believes that the paper she’s holding in her hands — and the reason why she wants to talk to him in private — has something to do with it.</p><p>“What did you want to talk about, Alicia?” he asks her when they’re at a decent distance. Not that the rest would ever listen to them; they’re too busy getting in and out of the room, with Michelle being the first to enter after Mateo.</p><p>“Why didn’t you tell me you two had a fight the night he got assaulted?” Alicia questions, brandishing the paper in front of him. </p><p>“How do you know that?” TK asks back, eyeing the sheet. Those stains are definitely blood — the paper looks like something liquid seeped through it shortly after the words were written, for half of the handwriting is muddled.</p><p>“My son wrote you a letter that night, apparently after a big fight you two had,” Alicia explains, pushing the paper into TK’s lap. “I shouldn’t have read it, I know, but it was among his things and since I want to, ehm, take him with me, Dan Kapinski gave it to me.”</p><p>“You read a letter Carlos wrote to <i>me</i>?” TK almost screeches. He grabs the piece of paper with shaky fingers. “And why would the doctors—oh, yeah, right, because you’re the only one who they have to respond to, legally speaking.”</p><p>“I’m sorry about that,” Alicia whispers. TK notices a change in her demeanor; she now seems a little smaller, a little more nervous, as she wiggles her hands in her lap before continuing, “I shouldn’t have pulled that card on them. I haven’t been part of my son’s life in a long time, and it’s my own fault that I didn’t know about you in the first place. I thought I wasn’t, you know, against gay people,” she chuckles humorlessly. “But when it was my son who came out, I freaked out. I thought it would all go away if I didn’t acknowledge it. And then he apparently met <i>you</i>, and his whole world changed and I almost took that from you.”</p><p>“Whoever assaulted Carlos almost took him from <i>us</i>,” TK tells her, setting the paper aside and grabbing her hands instead. Alicia cringes a bit at the touch, but TK doesn’t take it personally — she’s been through a lot, just like him. They should be comforting each other, not fighting a war on opposite fronts. “But Dr. Martinson won’t give up, and we shouldn’t either.”</p><p>“I’m sorry,” Alicia almost sobs, leaning in and resting her head on TK’s shoulders. “I’m sorry I was so uncooperative and horrible to you and everyone else. I just didn’t know how to react. I still don’t.”</p><p>“It’s okay,” TK mutters, patting awkwardly at her hair. He doesn’t know when his life has become this sort of soap opera, but he isn’t about to walk away from Carlos’ mother who’s currently experiencing a meltdown of her own.</p><p>He remembers when he came out to his parents, and their reactions. As much as Owen prides himself of being this inclusive and understanding Captain, he wasn’t, once upon a time. TK had a hard time accepting himself and his sexuality, and he had to come back home on weekdays to an absent mother who didn’t care about who he dated as long as he didn’t bring them home, and he had to come to his dad’s on weekends to an overbearing father who had already researched about how long a <i>gay phase</i> lasted in  teenagers. Owen Strand had had a hard time accepting his son the way he was, and although TK would never blame him for anything, he’s aware that his first overdose was the only reason why his father changed that way of seeing him.</p><p>“We’ll be okay,” TK comforts her. “You’ll see.”</p><p>“I’m so sorry for having treated you the way I’ve done. It was horrible of me. If I had just known—”</p><p>“You couldn’t,” TK says. “Carlos never told you about us, and he never really talked to me about you, except for the occasional side comment. It wasn’t your fault.”</p><p>“It <i>is</i>,” Alicia sighs, sagging against him. “If I hadn’t been such a—if I’d been there for him—”</p><p>“He still would have been assaulted,” TK reasons. “That had nothing to do with you, Alicia. Believe me.” He shakes his head, the absurdity of their situation not getting lost on him. He adds, almost as an afterthought, because he thinks she really needs to hear it, “I forgive you.”</p><p>“Thanks,” Alicia replies, sitting up and wiping her face with her hand. “But you need to forgive yourself too, TK. This wasn’t your fault either. I’m sorry I acted as though it was.” With that, she stands up, straightening her clothes as she moves a little away from the chairs where they had sat. “I’m going back to Carlos’ room. I need to talk to the doctors about a few details, but I’d love for you to be there with me when you’re ready. Please?”</p><p>She turns around and leaves before he can even form a reply in his head, in a true Alicia Reyes’ fashion that he’s come to know — and hate — in the past week. TK shakes his head, and in the movement his gaze falls upon the paper sheet he’s conveniently set aside before, while he was talking to Alicia. Now he picks it up with two fingers, inspecting it closely.</p><p>The red stains are definitely blood — it seems as though Carlos had been surprised by the assailants while writing the letter. TK feels his heart skipping a beat as he skims through the lines; part of them have been blurred and erased under the blood, but some lines of the letter are readable enough that he can make out some words before focusing his whole attention onto it.</p>
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</div><p>There are tears streaming down his face when he finishes reading the words that are still on the sheet, not having been erased by the blood that’s undoubtedly Carlos’. He wonders why this letter isn’t part of the investigation, since evidently the police had found it at Carlos’ apartment, and he comes to a conclusion before even finishing that thought.</p><p>Dan Kapinski — or someone working in this case — had had to read the letter. They most probably had understood what it meant, since Carlos had never hidden who he was, and he certainly hadn’t hidden <i>TK</i> from his closest friends.  They’d probably wanted him to have the letter, but the legal procedures at the hospital had prevented him from even reading it until now.</p><p>Blindly he runs back to the room, where he finds Marjan and Mateo standing guard outside. The rest of the crew is nowhere to be seen. </p><p>“Cap and Carlos’ mom took off a while ago,” Marjan informs him after she takes in what he’s sure it’s a crazy look in his eyes. “Don’t ask me where or how or why, but they seemed comfortable with each other. Judd, Grace and Paul are inside.”</p><p>“The Lieutenant General even told us to come visit Carlos anytime we wanted,” Mateo chirps in. “Such a change in her, don’t you think? TK?”</p><p>“I—Could you please leave me alone with him?” he begs, opening the door so the people inside could hear him. </p><p>“Of course, sweetie,” Grace replies, ushering Judd and Paul outside. “We’ll make sure no one bothers you.”</p><p>TK forgets to thank her before the door closes again, but he’s focused on something more important. He flops down on the chair nearest to the bed and grasps Carlos’ motionless hand. He looks up at his boyfriend, still and silent and pale on that bed where he doesn’t belong — he belongs to TK and TK alone, he belongs to their bed and their room and their home — and it’s all TK has in himself not to fling his whole body on top of Carlos’ and begs him to wake up.</p><p>“You were so wrong on so many levels, Carlos,” he begins. His voice quivers under the pressure of all the tears he isn’t ready to shed yet, even though they want to come out. “It’s <i>you</i> who deserves better. It’s <i>you</i> who deserves the world. And yet, for some irrational joke of fate, you chose <i>me</i>, you chose to be with me. You chose to ask <i>me</i> to spend forever with you. And what did I do? I yelled at you. I accused you of cheating on me. I ran <i>away</i>. I’ve almost lost you, Carlos. I’m not ready to let you go. So please, please,” he cuts himself, crying so hard even though he hadn’t planned on it that he doesn’t find his voice for a second — he hadn’t even known there were tears left in his system. “Please, come back to me. Please, let me love you. Because maybe we both deserve better than this, but I still think you’re the most wonderful thing that’s ever happened to me. Please, Carlos, I love you.”</p><p>He hangs his head low, his hand still squeezing Carlos’ so hard he might break some bones. There’s nothing else he can do now, nothing he hasn’t done for the past week and a half, so he just drops a soft kiss on Carlos’ hand and rests his forehead against the cool skin of his arm, hoping against all hope that this time his prayer would be answered.</p><p>Then, unexpectedly, just like everything else about Carlos Reyes has ever crept upon TK, he feels a rise in the beeps, a quicker pace, and the fingers heʼs holding onto for dear life squeeze his hand back, almost unnoticeably.</p><p>But he notices, and that motion is enough to bring hope back to him — it's enough to bring <i>Carlos</i> back to him.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>fun facts i learned while doing research for this fic:</p><p>* parris island is the marines’ basic training in south carolina. both carlos’ parents and his sister are marines, and it was just a logical train of thought that amalia ended up training new marines there.</p><p>* <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_ask,_don%27t_tell">don't ask don't tell (dadt)</a> was the official united states policy on military service by gay men, bisexuals, and lesbians, instituted by the clinton administration. the act prohibited any homosexual or bisexual person from disclosing their sexual orientation or from speaking about any homosexual relationships, including marriages or other familial attributes, while serving in the united states armed forces. </p><p>* the average time to complete austin police academy is around 32 weeks.</p><p>* i wasn't expecting alicia reyes, amalia reyes, thomas blake or dan kapinski to play such a big part on the story, but they had other intentions. i hope you like them as much as i do.</p><p>* while i was writing this, the working summary was as follows: <i>after a fight, tk leaves carlos to go have a run in the middle of the night. when he comes back, ready to apologize, he finds out carlos has been assaulted in his own house and heʼs in a coma. tk blames himself for that, and his own personal hell begins when the doctors tell him carlos most likely won't wake up.</i></p></blockquote></div></div>
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